How many times has southern heat and humidity been a major factor

in early season games at home against non-Southern out of conference opponents?

I’m just old enough to remember, in 2003, when a highly ranked Auburn team opened the season against Southern Cal, and a lot of the pregame talk centered around Southern Cal not being ready for the late August heat and humidity in Auburn. It was about 90 degrees that day, but Southern Cal won 23-0.

Obviously Southern Cal won that game because they had a good team that year and Auburn struggled, though had a lot of good players that would go 13-0 the next season.

The logic makes sense, though, as it’s very difficult to play in those conditions if you’re not used to it, but off of the top of my head I can’t remember a high profile game where a team from the north or west wilted in the late summer southern heat.

I guess we’ll see when Utah plays at Florida week one. I think Utah has the better team but I’m not discounting the possibility that the weather does get to them.