Last year, Texas embraced the hate. This summer, the Longhorns are embracing the heat.
According to AccuWeather.com, the average daily high during July of 2023 in Austin, Texas was 103.4 degrees. Texas head football coach Steve Sarkisian wouldn’t have it any other way as summer workouts in preparation for the 2024 season progress throughout the scorching months of June and July.
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Speaking last week in Destin, Fla. at SEC Spring Meetings, Sarkisian likened the Longhorns’ embrace of the heat in the first weeks of the season to how the Green Bay Packers or New England Patriots embrace the cold during the NFL playoffs. With a season-opening game on August 31 against Colorado State scheduled for a 2:30 p.m. start, Sarkisian knows it’s better to make heat and the ability to perform in it an advantage than to avoid it by working in the bubble.
“For us knowing the first half of the season or so, the majority of our games are gonna be triple digits to 90-something degrees, we have to feel comfortable in that arena,” Sarkisian said. “We do try to embrace it. We do think it’s an advantage for us.”
There’s a lot more technology these days, as well as a better understanding of heat and how it affects the body, than there was when Sarkisian was a second-team All-American with BYU back in 1996. Programs monitor hydration, weight, and vital signs like never before.
But even with the advances in technology, nothing beats experiencing what the hot sun feels like on Campbell-Williams Field inside an empty Darrell K Royal-Texas Memorial Stadium for the 2024 Longhorns.
It’s a good thing not just for the Longhorns’ frontline players, but also for those who are further down the depth chart. Sarkisian mentioned his team put a lot of players into the game during the early stages of the 2023 season. Against Rice, 70 Longhorns played in a contest where the temperature at kickoff was 99 degrees. Sixty-two played in the wins over Baylor and Kansas in September.
Sarkisian believes continuing to do that against non-conference competition, with some level of exception at Michigan when Texas needs to be at its full best, will help the Longhorns throughout their first season in the SEC.
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“We’re capable of playing multiple players,” Sarkisian said. “Early in the season last year, we were playing 32, 33 players on defense alone in the first half of games. I think we’ll have to continue to do that, but I also think that’s going to help us later in the season. If we can go try to accomplish some of the things we’re trying to accomplish, you’re playing well into January again.
“We’re going to need the depth on our roster to have gotten some extensive opportunities to play throughout the year so if we need them then, it’s not going to be their first time playing.”
If Texas is playing deep into January, its College Football Playoff contests after the first round will be in either climate-controlled indoor stadiums or warm-weather locales like Pasadena or Miami.
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To get there, it’ll be built of successes of early-season contests in Texas or other warm environments. The Longhorns are preparing for what hot weather may come to boost their chances of experiencing the cool air-conditioned atmosphere of Mercedes-Benz Stadium, the home of not just the SEC Championship but also this year’s national championship game.
