Earle
Well-Known Member
Gone, at least for the moment, is a SWAC football preseason played out under the swelztering summer sun of our nation's southern-most states. Gone also are sweaty players dressed out in shorts and tank tops with cooling stations nearby containing oversized tubs filled with ice and water. Gone still more, most probably, are early morning, dawn of day workouts before the school day opens. Enter a preseason born in the heart of winter, a first for modern-day college football. The winters are mild in Baton Rouge, where I went to college. It is not uncommon for temperatures to fall to or just below freezing during the early hours but rise to the lower 70s by the mid-afternoons. I used to live in Huntsville, Madison County, and Anthens, Limestone County, situated in Northern Alabama. There, the winters are colder and a wintry mix is much more likely than in southern Louisiana. I can remember attending an AAMU football game against SU and having to leave at halftime due to the weather. The cold was absolutely unbearable and unforgetting. This was November, not January! I've also lived in Rankin County (Flowood), Mississippi, a Jackson suburb. While the winters there seem to be a tad bit colder than BR, yet they are not as cold as Northern Alabama. The preseason will unfold in the dead of winter, a new normal to which our players must adjust. Practicing football in January and February will feel quite differently than playing football in October and November. Getting in quality prepration time could be a difficult proposition.
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