For the second week in a row, the UMass Minutemen football program will hit the road for what head coach Don Brown called another “sizeable trip”.

Between a 4,600-mile roundtrip to and from Las Cruces for last Saturday’s Week 0 game against New Mexico State and this week’s 1,200-mile trip to Auburn, the Minutemen will have spent a lot of time traveling when things finally kickoff from Jordan-Hare Stadium at 2:30 CT on Saturday.

“We’ve gotta handle the trip like men and make sure we’re prepared to play on Saturday,” Brown said in his press conference Monday.

Though getting a win on the road at New Mexico State is nothing to scoff at, which Auburn head coach Hugh Freeze alluded to in his press conference Monday, Brown and his players know their trip to The Plains will present much bigger challenges — both from an atmosphere standpoint and from an Xs and Os standpoint.

However, Brown and the Minutemen are hoping that already having a game under their belt and Auburn having yet to take the field will work in their favor.

“I hope so,” Brown joked when asked if he thought the Tigers might have to shake some rust off Saturday. “I don’t wish ill on people and I’m sure Coach Freeze will have them ready to play.”

Just as Freeze was complimentary of Brown for being “one of the best defensive play callers in the country”, Brown dished the mutual respect right back to Freeze, who Brown coached against last fall as UMass took on Freeze’s Liberty Flames.

“Coach Freeze is a good ball coach, now,” Brown said. “He does a good job offensively and obviously he’s making the adjustment to a new system and I’m sure he’ll have those guys ready to go. We’ve just gotta be ready for the challenge and go 100 miles and hour. That’s kinda the approach.”

Pleased with last week’s 41-30 win over New Mexico State — a game in which he says he saw his team make very few “wholesale mistakes” — Brown hopes the Minutemen can carry some of the momentum into Jordan-Hare on Saturday.

And though UMass currently sits as a 37.5-point underdog, Brown and the Minutemen won’t be looking for moral victories Saturday.

“Obviously we’ve got challenges in front of us,” Brown said. “But you know, SEC opponent. If you wanna be the best, you’ve gotta beat the best. So that’s the goal.”