Oklahoma’s Lincoln Riley discusses life amid coronavirus pandemic

Aside from missing out on spring ball, one of Riley’s favorite sporting spectacles of the year was set for this upcoming weekend.

With COVID-19 bringing America to a screeching halt, Oklahoma head coach opened up a bit during his local media tour on Monday about how he, his staff, and his family have adjusted during the mandated quarantine period.

“It’s been interesting. It’s definitely been different,” Riley told the Monsters of the Midday on WWLS. “Our staff’s been creative in finding ways to continue to get a lot of work done, so we’ve still got kind of a daily schedule that we continue to hit with our guys. I sneak over to Bennie’s garage early in the morning to let him work me out a little bit, so that’s been good getting a little bit extra time with him and then back over here.”

After a morning Zoom video conference with his staff, business is as usual for him the rest of the Sooners staff, just in a different setting than they’re used to.

“You’re either on a virtual meeting, watching film or watching recruits. Other than being outside for a spring practice and hosting recruits, we’re getting just about everything else done that we would be if we were in the office.”

Aside from missing out on spring ball, one of Riley’s favorite sporting spectacles of the year was set for this upcoming weekend.

“I hate that we don’t have The Masters this week. That’s probably my favorite sporting event of the year,” Riley said on WWLS. But in true coach fashion, he turned a negative into a positive.

“I saw they rescheduled it for November so hopefully, we’re right in the middle of a championship run at that time. That’s certainly one that’s going to be a little weird to not have that one here this week.”

Of course, it would not be quarantine without watching the Netflix docu-series on Joe Exotic, The Tiger King.

“We’ve gotten a couple episodes in. It’s interesting, to say the least. Some pretty good laughs, too. Dusty (Dvorcek) is going to have a tiger in his backyard here before we know it.”

Currently, Oklahoma is set to kick the season off on schedule against Missouri State on Sept. 5.

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