Every time Samford’s coaches and players look at their schedules and see that their next Southern Conference game, match or meet is against the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, there’s bound to be a smile or two.

It won’t necessarily be because they’re looking forward to playing the Mocs. No, it’s the short and easy 150-mile road trip from Birmingham, Ala., to Chattanooga that will seem like a slice of heaven.

“Everywhere else we go in the conference,” Samford athletic director Bob Roller said, “is at least five hours away. But we can get to Chattanooga in about two hours.”

The distance between Birmingham and most of the campuses in the SoCon is only part of the challenge the Bulldogs will face now that they’ve joined the conference. Samford is the only team in the SoCon in the Central time zone, so it will lose an hour on the way to every road game, and with the exception of UTC and possibly Appalachian State, the team buses and vans will all have to pass through the unpredictable traffic nightmare that is Atlanta.

“We’re going to get hit hard on all of our trips because of that,” Roller said.

Women’s basketball coach Mike Morris said a lot of thought is always put into making travel plans, but dealing with Atlanta makes it much more difficult because there’s always the possibility, some might say probability, that the team will be stuck in traffic for an hour or two.

“You’re going to have to put more time and thought into when you leave because of Atlanta and because you lose an hour (with the time change),” Morris said. “That will be a logistical thing that’s going to be different, and it’s something you can’t control.

“I can assure you that when the board of trustees voted for this, they weren’t thinking about what it’s going to be like trying to get to Georgia Southern.”

Southern Conference commissioner John Iamarino said the travel challenges that Samford will face were considered during the expansion process, “and that was before fuel costs rose dramatically,” he said.

“It was a concern, certainly, but in the long run we’re confident that they’ll figure out a way to adapt to it,” he said.

Samford’s basketball teams won’t be impacted by the travel quite as much as the other teams because of the school’s academic calendar, which features a January term — a four-week semester similar to what many schools have in May and during the summer.

The basketball players won’t be taking classes in January, so there’s less worry about missed class time, men’s basketball coach Jimmy Tillette said.

“During that month all our guys are doing is playing basketball,” Tillette said. “I tell them ‘This is as close as you’re every going to be to being a professional basketball player. You’ll play, practice and play video games, and that’s all you’ll do during the month of January.’

“So for that month I won’t have a lot of sympathy if we have to get on a bus for eight hours because we got nothing else to do. But during December and February, travel’s going to be real difficult for all of us.”