Football weather

LAWRENCE, Kan. — Throughout the nation, the month of November means the onset of what most describe as “football weather.”

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The definition of the term varies depending on one’s location in the contiguous 48 states. Football weather in Pasadena, Calif. is not the same as football weather in Happy Valley, Pa.

In Texas, football weather is associated with the arrival of brisk winds and increasingly chilly Friday night temperatures to where letter jackets may show pride in the playoffs, but may not offer enough coverage to keep the shivers away. In Austin, the temperature was in the mid-50s on Friday night for area round games around the state capital.

In Bozeman, Mont., where ESPN’s College GameDay is currently, football weather is a chilling -4 degrees Fahrenheit. The conditions have Kirk Herbstreit dressed like he’s ready to outrun a boulder with a relic in hand like Indiana Jones.

Lawrence, Kan. is somewhere in the middle of Austin and Bozeman. The temperature is somewhere in the middle of 58 and -4, too. The forecasted high for Saturday’s contest between the Texas Longhorns and the Kansas Jayhawks is 36 degrees. Weather.com says there will be “abundant sunshine.”

That sun is a welcome aspect for anyone in David Booth Kansas Memorial Stadium on Saturday. The forecasted double-digit MPH winds that will have it feeling like it is 20 degrees is not.

Some Texas players born and raised in the Lone Star State aren’t the biggest of fans of the cold weather. Texas linebacker Ovie Oghoufo, a Detroit, Mich. native, sold out Pflugerville’s Jahdae Barron as someone who doesn’t enjoy the frigid temperatures.

“Jahdae can’t take it,” Oghoufo said Monday.

Barron had a solution ready: “I’ll put some Vaseline on. I’ll be good to go.”

Players will no doubt feel the effects of the temperatures, as will anyone on the field during the final road game of the season for the Longhorns. Texas head coach Steve Sarkisian, though a California native, might be ready for what’s to come.

Despite starting his football career in Torrance, Calif., Sarkisian played in the Utah mountains before embarking on a professional career in the Great White North with the Saskatchewan Roughriders of the CFL, where most of his games were in the open air Taylor Field.

Like most football coaches, he’ll repeat an emphasis mental toughness in order to ignore the effect of the elements prior to the game.

But that might not be something he has to do often in the coming seasons as it pertains to weather.

Texas wants to be in the Southeastern Conference, where most of the teams are in the nation’s balmy southeast, sooner rather than later. 2025, the company line for when Texas and Oklahoma will join, is a long way away. Even if there’s a 2024 exit, 2023 will most likely feature a Big 12 schedule.

That schedule hasn’t been released yet, yet recent reports say Texas will play a game in Houston versus the Houston Cougars next season.

That’s all to say, the opportunities available to Texas to play a game like the one they have coming Saturday afternoon in truly frigid, sub-freezing temperatures are fleeting. Unless late November trips to Ames, Iowa or Morgantown, W.Va. or even Cincinnati, Ohio are on the schedule next year, Texas may not see temperatures this low at kickoff for some time.

Of course, polar vortexes like the one that plagued the nation in 2021 are possible. Snow could fall in Darrell K Royal – Texas Memorial Stadium, or Donald W. Reynolds Razorback Stadium in Fayetteville, Ark., or even Kroger Field in Lexington, Ky.

And, though it doesn’t seem like something worth mentioning, the potential 12-team playoff that will have teams playing road games in northern locales in December could — one day — send the Longhorns to a place like Ann Arbor, Mich. in the middle of the winter.

But with the move to the SEC coming, the scheduled opportunities ahead of Texas to wear its icy white uniforms in icy environments are few in number. Saturday in Lawrence could be one of the last for the foreseeable future.

Texas should apply the Vaseline liberally. It probably won’t need it for some time, at least not in this version of football weather.