Fans might not like them, but teams enjoy early games

Every year when the kickoff time is announced for OU-Texas, and it comes up 11 a.m., fans grumble.

“Grrrrr,” one Sooners fan tweeted in response to the Sept. 20 announcement that the annual game would kick off in the morning for the ninth time in 11 seasons.

While most fans might not like the early kick times, plenty of those involved in the game feel much differently.

“I know the fans don’t like it, but I absolutely love it,” Sooners assistant coach Shane Beamer said. “Number one, you get up and you just play. I know players like to sleep in and all that stuff but it’s hard as a coach — and I do love night games, but you sit around all day waiting to play. Me personally, I like early games because you get up, you play.”

While players do value their sleep, there’s plenty more that goes into their feel-

ings on kickoff time.

Many this week said they don’t care when the game starts, but a few expressed an affection for the 11 a.m. start.

“I think it’s great,” cornerback Parnell Motley said. “As a matter of fact, I love getting things started early. It’s a big weekend, intense rivalry — why not get things kicked off early? I can’t wait for the early game. For us, we

gotta get a lot of sleep and be ready for a big one.”

There are positives on both sides, linebacker Curtis Bolton said, but he feels like early kicks can be an advantage.

“You get it done early and it’s out of the way,” Bolton said. “You’re not sitting all day anticipating it because I know a lot of guys get burned out in pregame. I don’t care who you are, you have nerves before football games. It’s not a nervous thing, it’s more of an, ‘I’m just ready to go out there.’”

That can lead to mental

lulls, especially early in night games.

“You have to put yourself in that mindset to play successfully,” Bolton said. “The morning games are good because I can wake up and the schedule’s real, ‘Boom, boom,’ to the tee. When you get a late game, you get a lot of free time, lot of chill time to relax. It’s kind of counterintuitive to the mindset that you’ve got to put yourself in.”

For night games, the team usually sits around the hotels, going through some meetings but otherwise

experiencing a lot of downtime before heading to the stadium.

“Eleven a.m. games can be good because when you wake up, it’s game day,” sophomore cornerback Tre Brown said. “You don’t have to wait, sit around, do this and do that. As soon as we wake up, we’re fired up and we’re going to go play.”

Not every coach is completely on board with morning games being better.

“There are two sides to every coin,” special teams coordinator Jay Boulware said. “You get home early or you can sit around and watch some games. Which one do you want? I’m a college football fan. I like watching games, too.”

Last month, when the Sooners hosted Army for a 6 p.m. kickoff, Boulware said he spent plenty of time during the day — between meetings and other responsibilities — watching other games on television.

“For me, it doesn’t matter,” Boulware said. “Let’s tee it up and kick off so we can go.”