Frozen Football Flashback: AT&T Stadium Has Been Here Before

On Friday, the Texas Longhorns will play the Ohio State Buckeyes in the College Football Playoffs for a chance to compete in the national title game. For a stadium that’s seen more than its share of major matchups over the past 15 years, this contest has the makings to be one of the biggest yet.

Although Friday’s college game isn’t a championship game like the Super Bowl is, it is a marquee national event and it's likely to have something that Super Bowl XLV between the Green Bay Packers and the Pittsburgh Steelers in 2011 had: inclement winter weather messing things up.

You don't have to be a local to remember just how icy the stares of the sports world were that year after more than 5 inches of snow were recorded at Love Field and more than 6 inches in Collin County a mere two days before kickoff. Also, only two days before the big game, things got downright dangerous when six people were hospitalized after being hit by ice that fell from the domed roof of AT&T Stadium.

As football fans from colder locales such as Green Bay and Pittsburgh poked fun at the trouble we Texans appeared to have with a bit of snow and ice, the national news picked up on the difficulties. “Super Bowl in Super Weather Mess: Dallas Hit with Bitter Cold, Ice” read one ABC News headline, while The New York Times proclaimed “Ice and Injuries Mar Super Bowl Events.”


None of this includes the predictable chaos that occurs along the roads and in grocery stores throughout North Texas anytime a few flurries descend. All of that was certainly in play that fateful week as well to help keep matters from being smooth in any way for the many thousands who were in town for the festivities.

On top of all the atmospheric mess beyond anyone’s control, Cowboys owner Jerry Jones faced another, more controllable embarrassment related to the Super Bowl. A last-minute safety inspection inside the stadium determined that more than 1,000 seats were unsafe and couldn't be used, an attention-grabbing decision that resulted in the Cowboys, the NFL and Jones being on the wrong end of a multimillion-dollar lawsuit that would eventually be settled out of court years later.

When AT&T Stadium was awarded Super Bowl XLV in 2007, two years before the venue opened, there was every reason to think North Texas would join the ranks of New Orleans, Miami and the Los Angeles area as prime members of the Super Bowl rotation. But AT&T Stadium hasn’t even been in the running to host another one in the 14 years since that stormy weekend when current Cowboys head coach Mike McCarthy and his Packers took the Vince Lombardi Trophy home.

It’s also worth remembering that just a year earlier, Dallas was hit with a vicious winter storm when the NBA brought its all-star game extravaganza to North Texas, putting a damper on all sorts of parties and events. Overall, the 2010 storm seemed to create less trouble than the 2011 one did, but guess where the Feb. 14, 2010, NBA All-Star Game took place? Yep, AT&T Stadium.

The good news for Texas and Ohio State fans attending the game on Friday is that things should be relatively dry by the 6:30 kickoff time, according to WFAA meteorologist Pete Delkus on Tuesday afternoon. But that doesn’t necessarily mean that conditions will be great. A mix of rain and snow could still fall well into Friday morning.

Asked by The Dallas Morning News, a spokesperson for the Cotton Bowl didn’t say whether the game might be postponed due to weather, but instead offered up a hopeful bit of reassurance.

“We are routinely monitoring weather reports and we are in close contact with AT&T Stadium and local officials,” the spokesperson said. “We always have plans for inclement weather. Should conditions warrant it, we will communicate to everyone attending and connected with this year’s Goodyear Cotton Bowl Classic.”