My lawn is destroyed. It was in poor shape pre drought, and it had progressively gotten worse.

It's almost like skipped the phases of dying and went straight to disappearing. Literally grass to dirt over summer…

100% not salvageable. I knew I was in for re-sodding at some point but summer escalated things.

Am I too late in season to have this done?
I'm in Houston, some time before first frost.
I have several large mature oaks, they have really grown last couple of seasons, grass under them is gone. If I move forward better to replace all or just replace as needed?

This has not been a priority, now it's beyond repair.

Turf is not my thing. Any advice appreciated.

We had the same issue. Went from lush grass to bare dirt in 8 weeks over the summer. I think it was take all root rot. I applied heavy doses of fungicide and top dressed with peat moss, but it didn't stop it.

Since there were still a few of weeks of warm weather forecasted, we had the whole front yard and 1/2 of the back yard resodded 2 weeks ago. For the back yard, we cut it about 4-5 feet from where the rot was.
11 pallets. Total cost was about 5500. The landscaping crew used a sod cutter the first day, but because the roots were completely dead, the sod just crumbled and wouldn't roll. They had to rent a Bobcat and scrape it all up. It was a mess.

Now that cooler weather is forecasted, it's a toss-up as to plant now or wait till spring. Planting now won't let the roots have a chance to get very established before winter dormancy sets in. If there are not any major freezes this year, then it should be fine. If there is a hard freeze though, you could try to tarp it like a golf course to keep the roots from freezing.

I forgot to add that for the front yard, only about 1/3 of it was dead. The problem was that we could see where the fungus was continuing to spread and kill the grass. Also, I think because of mowing that I was spreading it to the still healthy parts. I could see where some streaks/spots were continuing to die. Because of this, we decided to just replace it all.
For the back yard, it was contained to that one half. The other half was good, so we kept it.

Thanks Dan,

Your experience is a carbon copy of mine, even the backyard!!!

I want to wait until spring but it's literally bare dirt in most of yard. What is interesting I have walk way and the regression did not cross over, which makes me think some fungal invasion.

I have a fertilizer service and they have never mentioned a possible cause or even a problem.

Same issue. I did as best I could to rip up all the dead grass recently with a metal rake and threw out winter rye this week to see if I can get something to grow this winter so its not a mudpit. Will plant Bermuda in the spring and be done with St Augustine hopefully forever.

Lucky though as my back ard is pretty small so not too much effort. Its prob over $1K to re-sod and don't feel like its worth it.

It likely wasn't take all root rot this year. Too hot and dry. Summer scorch and chinch bugs in all likelihood.

As far as what to do now, they are forecasting a strong cold front on Halloween and some areas north of Houston might get a very early first frost.