Theodore High football coach Steve Mask has coached throughout the state in his Hall of Fame career.

He doesn’t remember a summer this hot.

“We’ve certainly had periods of three or four days of heat in the past, but I don’t recall an extended period of time where it has been this hot for this long,” he said. “I don’t remember begging for a day where it’s only 95, but that’s basically what we’ve been doing this summer.

“If you watch the weather, they say, ‘Well, it’s going to be 102, but it’s going to feel like 117.’ Just tell me it’s going to be 117 then. I think it says a lot about our kids and all the kids out there right down and how much they love football because it definitely hasn’t been easy this summer.”

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The 2023 Alabama High School Athletic Association football season officially kicks off this Thursday, and there is no sign of a letdown in the temperatures. In fact, it might be just the opposite.

This week could be the hottest week of 2023 with the National Weather Service forecasting triple-digit high temperatures as a heat dome sets up over the state.

“My son and I were coming into lift this morning and he asked me if this was the worst I had ever seen,” Oneonta coach Phil Phillips said. “I would say it’s pretty close. I’ve never had (heat) symptoms, and I’ve been doing it since 1985. Twice, this year I’ve walked off the field just soaked.”

In an email to statewide coaches Monday morning, AHSAA official Jeff Segars wrote that the association had received several requests to alter game times due to the heat. AHSAA games usually kick off at 7 p.m.

According to the email, as long as both coaches and the officials agree, game times can be pushed back as needed. AHSAA executive director Alvin Briggs re-iterated that message to AL.com on Monday morning. However, no quarter may begin after midnight and no game may continue past 12:30 a.m.

A couple of games have been pushed back already. Thursday’s Chelsea at Helena game will kick off at 7:30 p.m. Clay-Chalkville will play at Briarwood at 7:30 on Friday. West Point and Good Hope will kick off at 8 p.m. on Friday.

Coaches are taking different steps to try to help their teams adjust.

“We are going to charter busses for a game 15 minutes away,” said Hartselle coach Bryan Moore, whose team plays at Austin on Friday. “I would rather not spend the money to go that far, but in this case it is worth it. We are just going to take our 10th-12th graders and we can put them on the bus in the AC if needed. We will also take cooling fans and trim down our pregame a little bit.”

Mask said Theodore will wear all white for its road-game at Baker on Friday.

“Hopefully not wearing much dark clothing will help,” he said. “We will have our kids remove their helmets as much as possible on the sideline just to try to get the heat off them, and we won’t warm up in shoulder pads. I haven’t done that for a while, but some teams still do. It’s just to keep heat off the guys as much as possible for 35 minutes or so at least.”

The AHSAA also mandates that heat timeouts be called during the first dead-ball period after the six-minute mark in each of the four quarters of a game. Heat timeouts will be used for the first four weeks of the season. Also, according to NFHS Rule 3-5-7, an official may grant a team timeout any time during a contest when warranted.

Coaches also have shifted practice schedules to try to alleviate heat concerns with some practicing in the morning and some later in the afternoon. The AHSAA recommends that when the heat index is between 103-125, the maximum length of practice is an hour with helmets only.

“We go by what the AHSAA recommends with the temperature,” said Vestavia Hills coach Robert Evans, whose team opens at Mountain Brook on Thursday. “We get weather alerts. We’ve had to cancel practices or go from pads to hour-long practices. We pretty much go by the letter of the law.

“When we have weeks of extreme heat as is supposed to be the case this week, we will go in the mornings. It’s not what I want to do, but I do want to practice. It’s always about the health and the well-being of our students and our coaches.”

Evans said one thing he won’t do, however, is change the way his team plays on a Thursday or Friday night.

“To be honest, I hope its 110 on Thursday instead of 102,” he said. “We aren’t going to change the way we play. If anything, we are going to step up the pace. We have 130 guys on the roster, and we need to utilize that strength in numbers the best we can.”

Evans said he hasn’t noticed that much of a heat difference year-over-year.

“It’s hot every summer,” he said. “We did have one day when the humidity was really terrible. I run most days during the hottest part of the day so I can gauge it. One day it was really hard to breath. Otherwise, I haven’t seen much of a difference. It’s hot every August in Alabama and usually pretty humid. But we go by the AHSAA recommendations for practice, and that takes the thinking out of it.”

There can be a thin line between making sure student-athletes are conditioned for games yet not overdoing it in the heat. Moore said Hartselle’s indoor facility has provided a huge advantage this month. Phillips said his team has practiced a lot at 5 p.m. when more shade is provided even on a turf field.

“You have to make sure to take plenty of breaks and limit the amount of time you are out in it,” Mask said. “Anything over 100 minutes is probably way too much right now. You have to work through it, but you have to be smart about it and keep an eye on the kids and recognize when they are stressed.”