Friday Night Lights was Friday Night Bugs

A weak cool front that didn't do half of what weathercritters had predicted in advance left North Texas semi-muggy and plenty of weather unsettled as late summer still refused to give way to fall for this week's Friday Night Lights?

Result?

Massive amounts of moths swarming stadium lights, and even more big black crickets on the ground, on people's backs, in people's hair and under people's shirts.

Yours truly was covering Era vs. Tom Bean.

Halftime fun had more entertainment from a kid about 4 years old, a young girl, trying to kill crickets with pom-poms than anything on the field. (Note to Tom Bean's band: No, you're not worth 7 minutes plus of airtime at an away game. Band teacher, train your drum majors to do a shorter program. Seriously. I'm not a sports editor geek guy; this is just common courtesy.

Era itself is an interesting place.

A few years ago, whether via a bond or cash in pocket, the school district sprang to replace grass on baseball and softball fields with turf.

Football field? Still grass.

The mouthpiece at left attests to that. Was it bug-free? Given the amount of crickets on the field, not for much longer than when I took this photo, I'm sure.

And, in an even bigger oddity in general in 2019, still no play clock behind the two end zones.

Anyway, the game was a small-school run-heavy event. Even with the time greed by Tom Bean's band, game was over before 9:45.

Small-school football also means small-school reffing.

I don't expect these refs to be close to perfect, unlike the first-year coach of S and S, who fancies himself a junior Mike Leach.

I do expect them to be reasonably OK, at least.

How this tackle at right wasn't flagged as a horsecollar, when UIL has had them verboten for several years and toughened its rules two years ago, I have no idea. But, it wasn't.

Anyway, it's before midnight, I've got photos edited, and we're off to another week.

And the weathercritters are saying the high for next Friday's tilts will only be in the 80s, err, 60s! We'll see. And, no, I do NOT need it to hit a flat 40 next Friday night.