STILLWATER – The Athletic did a story on the crazy record breaking heat wave through the South in college football on Saturday. That prompted us to do a story, but honestly, I was looking for a reason because of this cover picture of umpire Mark Warner during the game Saturday at Tulsa. This picture tells the story as the field temperature was a confirmed (by me) 161 degrees an hour before kickoff and rose to a reported high of 167 during the game.
Get ready for more of similar conditions next Saturday (Sept. 12) inside Boone Pickens Stadium for the home opener with Oregon. The projected high for that day in Stillwater is 96 degrees and a 24 percent chance of moisture, which means the humidity will be up. That really causes issues.
Oklahoma State didn’t seem to have an overabundance of heat issues, such as cramps. We did hear reports that a few players were IV’d with fluids at half and during the course of the second half.
“It was hot as hell, I’ll say that,” slot receiver Wyatt Young said as it appeared he did cramp up a couple of times. “Warmups I’m out there, when they scanned the field it was 161 on the field. That’s not easy to go through a whole hour and 30 warmup and then go through a three-hour game. My conditioning got the better of me today for sure.”
The visitors’ locker room at Chapman Stadium is a sauna. If there is any air conditioning it is way insufficient to deal with that heat. The postgame room where head coach Eric Morris did his press conference was a sweat box and the player interviews were moved upstairs to the concourse.
As for fans, it was obvious that once Tulsa opened up their basketball arena, Reynolds Center, for fans to go inside and watch the game on the video board that a lot of fans took advantage of that.
Oklahoma State might take that as a hint and prepare for a similar situation inside Gallagher-Iba Arena.
