For the first time since March 11, Oklahoma head football coach Lincoln Riley talked to the media about the impact of the coronavirus.
Oklahoma was scheduled to practice that Thursday.
The day after the Sooners hosted 55 NFL personnel for their Pro Day on March 11, the sports world came to a screeching halt.
Conferences canceled tournaments. The NCAA canceled the entire NCAA Tournament. Spring football was put on hold.
The world as we know it changed. And for it, some of the better things in life appeared.
“I think there’s definitely silver linings,” said Lincoln Riley during his first appearance with the Oklahoma media since OU’s Pro Day. “And I say that also being somebody that hasn’t had somebody close to me affected yet. So I almost hesitate to use the word, but there definitely have been. I think probably for all college coaches, a chance to be home a little bit more than what we’ve been able to, especially those of us with young children. “Definitely been able to do some things that we haven’t before and then I do think there will be, maybe, already starting to develop, and may further as this thing goes on, just an appreciation for things that maybe we overlooked a little bit when life was a little more normal. Just some of the simple things in life, some of the freedoms that we don’t have right now. I think there’s definitely some silver linings, and then seeing something that we have to defeat altogether, all of us together. That’s really the only answer. That’s the only way we beat this is by joining together so I do think there will be some positives in a very tough situation.”
Riley talked about the challenges of planning and credited his staff due to the different setups for every one of his players. He talked about the loss of reps for his quarterbacks during the spring, though he says that has given him no anxiety in the battle between Tanner Mordecai and Spencer Rattler.
The mid-year enrollees such as high schooler Bryson Washington and Perrion Winfrey have made it through the normal day-to-day process of Oklahoma football and will now have to adjust to something new. Recruiting has been put on hold, but Riley says that he hasn’t done anything much different besides sit in front of the computer all day—which should be an easy observation based off the head ball coach’s Twitter activity in the last month.
The Big 12 Conference granted Riley’s wish of evening the playing field for Oklahoma and other members of the conference alongside the programs in the other power five conferences. Something that he is excited about and still ponders.
“I was excited about the steps—we needed to take them,” Riley said. “So glad that we got to a point where we were able to do a few of those things. Now I think some of this will evolve. I do think and still kind of wonder how we settled on the two hours. We’re in a period right now football-wise where we are supposed to have 20 hours a week with our guys. We get that that’s not feasible. We totally understand that. I think with the amount of time that these guys have right now, other than working out and handling their classwork virtually, there’s a lot of time that we could continue to be improving these guys.
“In the virtual meetings, there are some limitations to them but there are also some strong benefits. I hope at some point we can ramp that up a little bit to make up for some lost time. Not just competitively, but from a development standpoint. They all want to get to their peak as players. This will slow down some of it and some of it we obviously can’t control and that’s part of it. But the area that we can control, that are safe and virtual, hopefully we’ll continue to look at that and adapt as we go on.”
Oklahoma is able to do pretty much everything it needs in the virtual meetings now given to Big 12 schools thanks to our current technology, according to Riley. The Sooners can watch film, get on the white board and get better mentally in the two-hours given each week.
It’s been three weeks since the coronavirus left its dent on the sports world. Adjustments and adaptation to the new reality have taken place, but everything that’s happened and needed since still doesn’t seem real.
“Yeah, I think like everybody you kind of take a step back and wonder, is this real?” Riley said. “A lot of it seems like we’re living in the movie. And it is real. It’s unprecedented. But I think we’ve got to stay facing forward and continue to do the right things as much as we can. It’s been a balance, but this job’s always balance. It’s new challenges. This one’s a little bit different, but thankful for the staff that we have, the support we’ve got. Without that it would have made an already difficult situation, to me, virtually impossible. Thankful for the things we do have and opportunities we do have. We’ll just keep doing our best.”
Riley says that he thinks 85 percent of his team is currently at home.
He hasn’t considered not having a 2020 football season yet. Nor could he imagine what playing a football game would look and feel like without fans.
Oklahoma’s head ball coach is sure that if needed, the allotted 15-20 practices in fall camp is enough to get a team ready. Riley suggested we’ll know more if players are back on campus by June 1.
Everyone is still looking for signs of what is going to happen today, tomorrow, next week, next month and even next year.
One thing, though, is for sure: football back would mean a whole lot to a lot of people.
“I said it the other day and I believe it, that I feel by September, the world is going to need football,” Riley said. “Hopefully I think a lot of that will be determined by our country’s response to this and how serious every single person takes it. Hopefully we, as a country, can do the best we can.”
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