Arizona State-Kansas weather forecast: Excessive heat warning in Phoenix area
From long flights to irregular sleep to time zone changes, road games come with many challenges.
When it comes to October college football in Tempe, Arizona, you can add weather to the equation.
The Kansas Jayhawks will be walking into a literal inferno on Saturday at Arizona State, with game time temperatures expected to be hovering around 105 degrees. The National Weather Service issued an excessive heat warning on Friday afternoon ... and it remains in effect until Monday at 8 p.m. MST.
The NWS classifies an excessive heat warning as "dangerously hot conditions" that could lead to heat cramps, heat exhaustion and heat stroke.
This is nothing new for the Sun Devils, who deal with 100-plus degree temperatures from May through October. The Jayhawks, on the other hand, aren't used to playing in this kind of heat. The temperature is expected to remain above 100 degrees until the sun goes down at 6:06 p.m. MST. The temperature should drop into the high 90s for the second half.
Arizona State's first two home games of the season - Aug. 31 vs. Wyoming and Sept. 7 vs. Mississippi State - both kicked off at 7:30 p.m. MST, well after sunset. The Kansas-Arizona State game is scheduled to kick off at 5 p.m. MST, which means it will be played under a scorching sun for at least an hour.
"Once you're above 90, it's pretty darn hot all the way around," Kansas coach Lance Leipold said earlier this week. "So it'll be a challenge, but we can't let it get to us."
The game time temperature will rival the hottest ever recorded for Arizona State - and the top 5 hottest games were all played in late August and early September. To have a game this hot in early October is clearly an outlier.
Arizona State's game vs. Sacramento State on Sept. 5, 2013 was the hottest game time temperature ever recorded in Tempe at 107 degrees. A close second was ASU vs. Eastern Washington on Aug. 31, 2002 at 106 degrees. Saturday's game vs. Kansas could easily come in third.
Ben Sherman has been covering the sports world for most of his journalism career, including 17 years with The Oregonian/OregonLive. One of his favorite memories was covering the 1999 Fiesta Bowl - the first BCS National Championship Game - at Sun Devil Stadium.