It's hot in Texas, and the Longhorns are practicing in the heat for their benefit
It’s going to be hot in Austin on August 31 when the Texas Longhorns face the Colorado State Rams in their 2024 season opener. So when it was hot on July 31 for the first day of preseason practice, Longhorns head coach Steve Sarkisian made sure his players started getting used to what the first game’s likely environment would be.
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“With the heat and the reality of the heat, I just got done telling the team we have to embrace this heat that we have,” Sarkisian said Wednesday. “It needs to become our friend. It needs to become our ally. It needs to become something we lean into because early in the season, that’s the way it’s going to be played from the first kick of the first game at 2:30 on August 31. We’re going to have to deal with those elements and we need those elements to be a strength of ours.
Sark’s preference is strategic in multiple ways. Getting acclimated to the heat is necessary for football players not only in Texas, but also throughout the Southeastern Conference. It’s a way to test the mental fortitude of his players, something the team made sure to do regularly during summer workouts.
But he also doesn’t overdo it. Despite practice starting at 2:30 p.m. on Wednesday, the Longhorns only spent an hour outside before moving into the practice bubble. The Horns likely have a similar schedule for Thursday’s training session. On Friday and Saturday, the team will start practice at night.
The Longhorns are using NFL methodology as part of the preparation for the first fully-padded practice in a few days. Sarkisian said they were using a “ramp-up model” at the start of camp so that the Horns are in better position to break through the proverbial “wall” that might arrive early.
They’re pairing that methodology with information provided by a sports science department Sarkisian took pride in on Wednesday.
“Science is incredible with the information that we can get,” Sarkisian said. “We used a different model in training camp last year than we did the previous two years, and we did the same thing again today, which is a little bit more of a ramp-up model that they use in the NFL. We don’t go quite as many reps. We try to build towards what we want to be in practices No. 5, 6, and 7.”
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Camp is meant to be a grind that prepares for the season, but the season is a grind as well. Combine that with the fact that the Longhorns have aspirations to play on January 20, 2025, and coaches have new brand new variables they have to take into account as they prepare for the season.
That’s not going to stop Sarkisian from making sure his team gets physically prepared for the 2024 campaign with difficult practices and competitive scrimmages. The first scrimmage is on August 10.
“We’re going to go hard for the first two-and-a-half weeks,” Sarkisian said. “I think that’s a mindset. We believe in the toughness in our program. We have to push them to places where maybe they couldn’t think they could go, and then excel in those places.”
Those two-and-a-half weeks will be tough, but it’ll be worth it as the Longhorns prepare for the opener against the Rams. A proverbial light is at the end of the tunnel for his players after camp.
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But it’s a scorching hot tunnel.
“Then kind of in that week three, the week before the first game, we’ll start tapering a little bit and getting their bodies back right,” Sarkisian said.
