There’s an old saying that everyone talks about the weather, but nobody does anything about it. And while we can’t do anything about the weather, maybe we can do something about the scheduling of fall sports — in particular football.

Friday night marks Week 7 of the 2007 prep football season. Although it has officially been autumn for more than two weeks you’d never know it by the heat and humidity at most football games. And if it’s hot in this part of the state imagine what our neighbors to the south are feeling.

As the playoffs have been expanded to give more teams a shot at the state title, the start of the regular season has continually been moved forward. Gone are the days when football season started in mid to late September. These days we are lucky if it doesn’t start in mid August.

Ask almost any coach in the state, and they’ll tell you it’s really too hot for football, but what are they to do? Let’s face it, the two weather conditions people associate with the Sunshine State are heat and hurricanes.

Maybe it’s time to regain some sanity and start the season later. Even moving the season back two weeks would help with the heat. 

I know that would push state championship games close to the Christmas break. At one time it could be argued that such a move would conflict with basketball season. But these days the number of athletes that play both sports is shrinking quickly.

High school football used to mean cool fall nights with a bit of chill in the air. I think players, coaches and fans alike would all enjoy the games a little more if it really felt like football season.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 10th, 2007 at 10:09 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.