Purdue Hosts America’s Swampiest College Football Game of Week 1…

LAKE JACKSON, Texas, Sept. 2, 2026 — SwampButt Underwear™ has expanded its weather-based and science-adjacent Scale of Sultry to assess all 90 games on the Week 1 college football schedule and make a weather-based prediction for each matchup.

The Scale of Sultry is an unconventional weather and team-conditioning model that identifies which team may possess an advantage based on the conditions at each school’s home location. Colleges and universities in the hottest and most humid climates generally receive higher Scale of Sultry numbers, while institutions farther north typically experience less oppressively swamp-like conditions.
The model compares the conditions at each school’s home campus at the scheduled kickoff time. Teams accustomed to greater heat and humidity are predicted to have a conditioning advantage, regardless of other factors such as coaching, home-field advantage, roster talent, rankings or the considerations normally used to handicap college football.

The Scale assesses all 90 games scheduled from Thursday, Sept. 3, through Monday, Sept. 7, 2026.
This Week’s Most Sultry Matchup

Current modeling identifies Indiana State at Purdue as the swampiest game of the weekend, with a preliminary Scale of Sultry number of approximately 8.9 out of 10. “It is interesting because West Lafayette—not Florida, Louisiana or Texas—currently has the swampiest game scheduled,” said college football enthusiast and SwampButt Underwear spokesman Nick Heraldson. “At least for me, I never thought of Indiana weather as being like Singapore, but here we are.” For comparison, the Western Kentucky–Nevada game in Reno currently has Week 1’s lowest Scale of Sultry number at approximately 3.9.

Weather-Only Upset Watch
The system has produced several counterintuitive predictions based solely on the teams’ home-campus conditioning environments, including:
• Hampton over Maryland
• Miami (Ohio) over Pittsburgh
• Washington State over Washington
• Mississippi Valley State over Sacramento State

“These represent a lot of uncomfortable possibilities,” Heraldson said. “But the numbers do not lie, and neither do we when it comes to reporting what the Scale predicts.”

The Scale of Sultry began the 2026 season with a 2–5 prediction record during Week 0. Predictions and forecasts are preserved so visitors can compare them with the final results. “We could quietly forget the five misses, but that would not be very fair,” Heraldson said. “The predictions are part science, part football experiment and partly an excuse to spend time on college football while we are supposed to be working.”

The Scale does not consider rankings, betting lines, coaching, injuries, recruiting, statistics or the relative quality of the teams. It looks only at weather, climate and the possible conditioning advantage associated with the environments where the teams normally practice and play.

The Weather in Your Pants
The Scale of Sultry was originally created to describe something conventional weather reports overlook for people attending college football games: how likely the combination of heat, humidity, sunshine and slow-drying clothing is to produce an uncomfortably sweaty bottom.

The Scale later expanded into college football by applying its measurements to stadium conditions and comparing the environments in which opposing teams normally practice. After making predictions for selected games during the 2025 season, the Scale expanded in 2026 to cover the complete weekly schedule.

View the Week 1 Forecasts
Seven Featured Games:View the seven featured Week 1 games
All 90 Week 1 Games and Predictions:View all Week 1 games and predictions

The best part, forecasts may change as weather conditions and kickoff information are updated. So no one is seeing data from mid-week but absolute, up to the moment information. The Scale of Sultry is an informational and entertainment feature, not a betting recommendation or official weather warning.