Passports? Western Kentucky officials says no worries, they’ve got ’em.

The WKU football team was selected Sunday to play in the first Bahamas Bowl against Central Michigan on Dec. 24 in Nassau, Bahamas – an island getaway in the dead of winter simply for winning enough football games throughout the season. 

But there were some immediate concerns about whether all those involved with the program could actually enter the Caribbean island without a passport.

Not to worry. The school was proactive on this issue.

“We really just started that a couple weeks ago,” WKU athletic director Todd Stewart said. “The conference told us that we were one of the teams that were in line to possibly be in the Bahamas Bowl. You really can’t wait until 10 days out or two weeks out to do all that. So we started a lot of that. That process is well along.”

The Hilltoppers (7-5) clinched a bowl berth with a win over Marshall on Nov. 28, and the team was bowl eligible Nov. 22 after it defeated Texas San Antonio for its sixth win of the season. Even before that point, the program’s staff began to work toward having passports for players, coaches, staff members and anyone else who might need to travel out of the country for a bowl game.

A college football bowl game has not played outside the United States since 2010, when South Florida beat Northern Illinois 27-3 in front of a crowd of 22,185 in Toronto. The last time a game was played outside North America was in 1946 when Southern Mississippi played Havana University of Cuba in the Bacardi Bowl in Havana. The 1937 Bacardi Bowl, a 7-7 tie between Auburn and Villanova, was the last game between two American programs played outside the U.S. or Canada.

So all this heading into foreign lands is new for both teams.

“Well, certainly there are some different twists to it,” CMU athletic director Dave Heeke said during a news conference Sunday. “We had already done some preliminary work in securing passports and the right documentation. … as a league we had been preparing each of our schools as they progressed and were in contention for this game to begin those preparations, so we’re totally prepared to do that.”

While the two programs prepared for a possible trip to the Bahamas Bowl, a good number of fans likely did not. Even those who may have little problem affording the trip are out of luck without a passport.

The United States government allows citizens to request an expedited process to receive a passport if the citizen can prove urgent need – but that process can still take up to three weeks.

“It’ll just be something new for our fans – new, really, for anybody’s fans,” Stewart said. “It’s just something we’ll have to work through.”

NOTES

WKU coach Jeff Brohm will received $50,000 bonus for his team clinching a winning season this year. The first-year coach would receive another $50,000 if the Tops win the bowl game. … According to Street & Smith’s Sports Business Daily, participants in the Bahamas Bowl will receive an Ogio Marshall Pack backpack and a New Era 39Thirty cap as gifts. … Only 11 WKU players participated the last time the Tops faced CMU in the 2012 Little Caesars Pizza Bowl in Detroit: Defensive backs Rico Brown (then a wide receiver) and Cam Thomas, offensive lineman Cam Clemmons, tight ends Tim Gorski and Mitchell Henry, wide receiver Willie McNeal, defensive ends T.J. Smith and Gavin Rocker, linebackers Daqual Randall and Terran Williams and kicker Garrett Schwettman.

— Follow Western Kentucky University football reporter Chad Bishop on Twitter at twitter.com/MrChadBishop or visit bgdailynews.com.