Lincoln Riley: 'We've got to Handle (COVID) Better'
Oklahoma coach Lincoln Riley expressed disappointment Monday for all the players who had to miss Saturday’s season-opener against Missouri State.
“We’ve got to handle it better,” Riley said on the Big 12 coaches teleconference. “Regardless.”
The Sooners were missing 20 players from their projected two-deep but still handled Missouri State 48-0. Some of those missing were NCAA suspensions. But most were held out because they were traced back to having had contact with someone who either had COVID-19 or was suspected to have it.
“We actually had zero (test positive) on Friday,” Riley said. “It was actually just a culmination, which can happen, especially with the contact tracing element. I mean, one or two positives can knock out a lot of people in a hurry.
“Was I disappointed we had so many people out? I was. I was. I think at some point become a little bit of a victim of some of the success we had early, because obviously the more guys on the team you have that test positive throughout a year, that’s obviously a lot smaller number of guys that you’re testing. But still, we’ve got to handle it better. Regardless.”
Oklahoma went without a positive test for four consecutive weeks after returning to campus on July 1. Since then, positive tests have popped up here and there. But then, the week of the season opener, a spike in either positives or contact tracing.
Missouri State’s president even said late last week that his school’s game against the Sooners was in ”serious jeopardy,” and Riley said after the game that it “hung in the balance.”
“We as a team, everyone has got to do better,” Riley said Monday. “And it’s such a — as we’ve seen — it can get out of hand or become a big problem so quickly, you know, just one or two can turn into knocking so many people out.
“It’s obviously something I’ve got to do a better job with, our players have got to do a better job with if we want to be able to have our full crew or as close to it available for these Big 12 games.”
OU has an open date this weekend, but Riley declined to specify the number of players who sat out Saturday.
“We had a few people out,” he said. “Not ready to say specify that, though. I’m not saying that I won’t. I’m not promising that I will. But I’m not ready to do that at this time.”
Riley said he has declined to identify even raw numbers of positive tests and victims of tracing because he’s concerned primarily with his players’ privacy.
“We’re reporting it to all the teams that we play,” he said. “Missouri State was well versed in our tests on a daily basis. We’re reporting it to all the health agencies, the university, all that. The problem in this world becomes privacy. That’s my biggest concern, and that’s just the world of college football and the world of the Internet. There’s not much privacy.
“I go come out before the game and say, ‘Well, we’ve had however many positives,’ then all the people that love to go dig and do this and that are gonna fight like crazy to figure out who that is, and then you’re talking about kids’ medical records that players and families are very sensitive to. And I just feel like that’s my duty to protect that, while also making sure, of course, all the COVID protocols, all the people that we’re required to report to, know — opposing team, all that. So that’s the balance we’re gonna try to find with it.”
“Other than the privacy issue, I don’t have a whole lot wrong to say about it or to say against it. Just, unfortunately, that’s the world we live in.”
Riley said that’s just how it’s going to be moving forward from these unprecedented circumstances.
“It’s gonna affect everybody at some point in time,” he said, “and it’s gonna be constant.” he said.
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