Lincoln Riley: Sooners Will Be Ready

On the calendar, Oklahoma should be early into third week of spring football practice.

Instead, because of the Coronavirus shutdown, the Sooners are scattered here and there – Riley said on a conference call Tuesday that 80-85 percent of the players are home and not in Norman – and rather than spring practice, they’re doing what they can to stay in shape, keep in touch and get on a video conference with their coaches for two hours a week, per new NCAA rules.

Riley said he hasn’t given much consideration to not playing the 2020 season – that would be a waste of time, at this point – so on the assumption that football does return this fall, what would summer workouts with spring practice look like? What would training camp look like? What would a college football season with a truncated camp look like?

For example, could the NCAA implement emergency rules for a July (or even June) practice period to replace all the practices lost in the spring before things get ramped up in August?

“There’s been a lot of things tossed around,” Riley said. “Obviously it’s gonna be dependent on how this thing continues to progress. I know they’re looking at different options there, especially for teams that did not complete spring ball. It’s a little different now because everybody’s done different degrees of spring ball. Those that started early obviously got more practice in, those that started later, like us, did not get very many in.

“So there’s gonna have to be some type of way to make that whole, where it may be however many days, you subtract the amount of spring practices you got in so that it makes that part of it equal. Which, I think that part of it is being discussed.”

Among the topics broached during a 35-minute media conference call, Riley said teams probably wouldn’t need more than 15-20 practice to get up to speed.

“Just strictly talking from a football perspective, if these guys have chance to stay in shape, or hopefully we get a little time in the offseason to work them out, we could have 15-20 practices and be ready to go play. Without a doubt,” he said. “Does that mean it would be as good as it was if we wouldn’t have lost spring ball and all that? I can’t answer that. But I know we would be ready to play and compete and play well.

“How late is too late to start it? I don’t know that we can put a limit on that. Football can be played — just purely, the game — can be played just about any time, anywhere. So I think we gotta all have an open mind about it.”

Riley said such a team built on 15-20 preseason practices, rather than the usual 30 or so — and no spring — would probably resemble how teams look halfway through fall camp: half finished. But he didn’t think that would be all that bad.

“To a fan’s eye, I think the game will still be fantastic,” he said. “Now, to a coach’s eye, to a very experienced eye, maybe they’ll be able to pick out a thing here or there, yes. But I don’t think it would hurt the quality of the fan experience, the fan excitement. I think it would be minimal, and the experience and the excitement I don’t think would have any effect at all. And, like anything, teams would improve throughout the year.”

Riley said less prep time would probably give teams that didn’t experience much turnover — either in the roster or on the coaching staff — an inherent advantage over those that did.

“I know this: not that it’s ever easy, but I’m sure glad it’s not last year,” he said. “Brand new quarterback in the competition, a new o-line and a brand new defense. That would not have been — not that I’m sleeping great, but I would have been sleeping a little bit worse last year.”

“My hope is, honestly,” he said, “if we’re doing anything to prepare for the season, whether it’s offseason workouts, whether it’s practices or they just give us extended meeting time and walk-through time, I think we’d take any of those scenarios right now.”

To get the latest OU posts as they happen, join the SI Sooners Community by clicking “Follow” at the top right corner of the page (mobile users can click the notifications bell icon), and follow SI Sooners on Twitter @All_Sooners.