Amidst one of the biggest impacts on sports in our history, Oklahoma’s head coach made a long awaited appearance.
Lincoln Riley last spoke to the media the Wednesday prior to the coronavirus leaving a lasting impact on history when everything shut down that Thursday, March 12. It was about Oklahoma’s Pro Day with Jalen Hurts, CeeDee Lamb, Neville Gallimore, Parnell Motley amongst many others who had just been done competing.
On Wednesday, Riley went on radio with Oklahoma play-by-play announcer Toby Rowland for an 11-minute segment. They discussed the ins-and-outs of the impact of the coronavirus on Oklahoma football.
Here is what the Sooners’ head coach said about the days leading up to the coronavirus cancelations, the plan with the program after and evening the playing field in college football in the conferences response.
ON THE DAYS LEADING UP TO CORONAVIRUS CANCELATIONS:
“Very unprecedented like it’s been stated over and over. You just kind of have to hit pause because things were changing so quickly. Even what you thought was true or what the plan was, in one hour it might not be true even the next hour. It was just changing so constantly. Luckily we got great leadership here with our administration and they did a good job of keeping us informed and eventually it was so fluid and so dynamic that we honestly stopped making plans and let it happen. Then we’re ready to react once the dust is settled a little bit. It obviously changes a lot. Plans for spring football, what you’re going to be doing with the players, academic plans—I mean everything that has taken months of months of planning was blown up just like a lot of businesses, a lot of people around the country. It changed everybody’s life. And we had to adjust and we had to it on the fly and we had to do it quickly, and again I am thankful for having a tremendous staff and people that have been experienced and been around and think outside the box and put together a plan for our guys, ourselves as a staff and then trying our best to execute it ever since.”
ON THE PLAN WITH THE PLAYERS:
“Guys are obviously home for the rest of the semester and majority of them are at their homes. First thing was getting the academics set up. They are taking the classes online like all of our students are and then we are doing tutoring sessions virtually. Kind of checking in them with academically because it is a huge change academically from what our guys are used to. From a football standpoint, honestly, it’s a little bit all over the place. The NCAA is supposed to here in the next couple days, get us some regulations. Right now it’s been by conference, and honestly, it’s all over the place. Our conference has been more stringent on it. We’ve not been able to do virtual meetings. Our players have not been able to come in to our weight rooms, even on an individual basis. We haven’t been able to send them equipment, whereas a lot of other conferences, like the ACC right now, they’ve been able to do all those things. So that hasn’t been a positive in that it hasn’t really been an equal playing field. Now, you get it just because how much has changed in the short time, and I know the NCAA’s got a lot of stuff they’ve got to figure out, our conference commissioners, (athletic directors), but I know that’s something that they’re trying to work through and get done here quickly, because we’ve got to level the playing field because what we can and can’t do during this time, and then we all need to abide by it.”
DEEPER ON THE LEVELING OF THE PLAYING FIELD:
“These guys train, you know, basically for a living and a lot of these guys are at home and they don’t have a home gym in their home and then their high schools, their local gyms—all those things are shut down. So a lot of our guys, not a lot, but I would say you’re probably talking about 20 to 30 percent of our guys, at least don’t have anything to train with. So being proactive, we want to get things in our guys’ hands so they can train and we haven’t been able to do that yet. I know there’s a lot that has changed, and again, a lot of sports were canceled. There’s a lot going on. I know it’s a high priority for all the groups right now to figure out, what do our athletes need during this time, what should we be able to provide them, what can we do with them as far as virtual position meetings and all that. What can we do and what can’t we do very simply. And that’s something that they’re going to figure out here pretty quickly and lay down a set a rules and then we’ll go from there. But obviously, the sooner the better.”
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