High school football season officially kicks off this week throughout the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex, and several games have already been affected by the extreme temperatures that have tormented the area all summer.
According to The Dallas Morning News and NBC 5 DFW, 14 games scheduled for Thursday and Friday have already been delayed to cope with the heat, as the high temperature is expected to reach 107 degrees.
The games affected so far include Richardson vs. Frisco Centennial (now 7:30 p.m.) and Abilene Cooper vs. Keller (now 8 p.m.) on Thursday as well as Friday matchups like Denton Guyer vs. Rockwall-Heath (now 7:30 p.m.), Highland Park vs. Flower Mound Marcus (now 7:30 p.m.), South Oak Cliff vs. Duncanville (now 8 p.m.), Trophy Club Byron Nelson vs. Plano (now 7:30 p.m.), and Rowlett vs. Plano East (now 7:30 p.m.)
“I don’t foresee any issues,” Flower Mound Marcus head coach Mike Alexander said in an email to The Dallas Express. “Our guys are acclimated, and we scrimmaged last week at 7:30 with no issues.”
According to the DMN, South Oak Cliff and Duncanville will each be given extra timeouts for their Friday night game at SMU’s Gerald J. Ford Stadium.
Excessive heat has affected North Texas all summer. As of Monday morning, the summer of 2023 had tied the summer of 2011 with 19 days of 105 degrees or higher in a single summer. Only the summer of 1980 (28 days) had more.
Last Saturday’s 108-degree high broke a record set in 2011, while even higher temperatures are predicted for this weekend.
According to NBC 5 DFW, official excessive heat warnings have also been issued in Arkansas, Kentucky, Minnesota, Nebraska, Illinois, and Iowa.
Other schools and districts throughout the DFW area are expected to make decisions on their games throughout the week.