Oklahoma Head Coach Lincoln Riley Addresses Resurgent COVID-19 Concerns, Players' Positive Tests

Sooners had several players and two staffers test positive for coronavirus earlier in the week, but Riley says "I'm confident in our plan"

When Lincoln Riley met with media Friday via video call, the characteristically stoic Oklahoma head coach kept an even keel.

But even he acknowledged that as college football season draws ever closer, there are still far more questions than answers as COVID-19 crops back up across the nation.

“All of this is new for everybody, [and] there’s not one thing we do on any given day that’s not affected by this pandemic," Riley said. "It takes a lot of work, but that’s far and away the least of our concerns. Some of it is as small as the details of what kind of mask you wear, how you get them in and out of the facility.”

Though fourteen Sooners tested positive for COVID-19 earlier in the week, Riley was adamant that he's not alarmed by his team's number of cases. As SI Sooners reported Wednesday, two staffers also tested positive for the virus.

“Those numbers, I would say I’m not surprised [by]," he said. "We’re kind of a microcosm of the whole country right now. No surprise; we certainly weren’t expecting zero. [And] I don’t know if comfort’s the right word in this situation, but I feel confident in our plan.”

Nevertheless, when asked if he's sure that there will be a full slate of games in the fall, the Sooners head coach said that he's not taking anything to the bank. 

“There’s no 100 percent right now," Riley ceded. "Things are changing. Now that these numbers have surged, that’s created some more doubt in people’s minds, understandably. My job is to get this team ready for anything that comes our way, whether that’s rescheduling games, playing all the games, only playing the conference games."

As the calendar flips to July and training camp draws near, Riley admitted that any plans currently in place will have to remain flexible. With the virus no less of a threat than it was three months ago, nothing is set in stone.

"We’ll have to deal with some of those things as [they] come up," he said. "We’re not gonna know. We’ve got to let it play out. We’ve all certainly got to be ready to adjust.”

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