Penn State football will take on Memphis in the 2019 Cotton Bowl Classic in its third New Year’s Six bowl in the last four seasons.

The contest’s name may suggest that the Nittany Lions and Tigers will end their 2019 regular season at the iconic Cotton Bowl, which holds 92,100 fans and is located in Dallas. That won’t be the case, however, as the two teams will play at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas — the home of the NFL’s Dallas Cowboys.

The original Cotton Bowl opened in 1939 and has undergone a host of renovations and expansions since — the most recent of which came in 2008. However, the Cotton Bowl Classic was moved from the iconic venue to the brand-new home of the Cowboys in 2010 as part of an effort to make the contest more appealing as a BCS bowl game.

“The missing piece has been that stadium,” former Cotton Bowl Classic chairman Bruce Gadd said in 2010. “What we didn’t have was a world-class stadium with weather protection. We were perceived as a cold-weather bowl a lot.”

This effort didn’t work right away, but the Cotton Bowl Classic was introduced as a “major” bowl game along with the implementation of the College Football Playoff format. The game now serves as a College Football Playoff semifinal every three years. Clemson beat Notre Dame 30-3 in last year’s Cotton Bowl Classic to secure a spot in the national title game.

The Cotton Bowl Classic made its move to AT&T Stadium — the state-of-the-art home venue that seats 100,000 people and cost $1.2 billion to build — because of the stadium’s retractable roof. That, of course, eliminates any concerns about weather impacting games played in the stadium, and North Texas’ climate in the winter isn’t as warm as other parts of the deep South.

According to Weather Spark, Arlington’s historical average temperature during the last week of December usually sits around the mid-to-high-50s. That doesn’t sound that cold — it actually seems way balmier than State College’s winter climate — but temperatures have dipped into the low 40s and high 30s for past Cotton Bowls.

Last year, the high temperature was 41 degrees at kickoff of the Cotton Bowl Classic, according to Weather Underground. The final Cotton Bowl Classic at the old Cotton Bowl was played under gorgeous 75-degree conditions, but kickoff was around 50 degrees (which might as well be minus-30 for people used to warm weather) the year before.

Early forecasts from AccuWeather project rainy, 60-degree weather on the day of Penn State and Memphis’ contest. There’s obviously a lot of time for this to change, but you can rest easy knowing that the weather won’t impact your experience inside AT&T Stadium on gameday.

The Cotton Bowl Classic will obviously be played outside the actual Cotton Bowl, but that doesn’t mean the stadium isn’t being put to good use this holiday season. The NHL’s Nashville Predators and Dallas Stars will play an outdoor game at the stadium on New Year’s Day for the league’s annual Winter Classic.

For those of you keeping track at home: the Cotton Bowl will be played at AT&T Stadium, and the NHL’s Winter Classic will be played at the Cotton Bowl.

Take it away, Patrick: