Pins and needles: Lincoln Riley describes how OU is adapting to Friday COVID test procedures
College football coaches across the country have learned to hold their breath every Friday.
That’s the final day every week their players get tested for COVID-19 before sequestering everyone for the next day’s kickoff.
In their first game out, a 35-31 loss to Arkansas State, Kansas State had what coach Chris Klieman said was 35-40 players out from either positive COVID results or contact tracing.
“We were close last week,” Klieman said on Monday, “and honestly, we were waiting for the test on Friday at 5 o’clock to push us ahead from one of the threshold positions … where we could play.”
That same night, in a 48-0 victory over Missouri State, No. 3-ranked Oklahoma was missing 20 total players listed on the two-deep, 17 of which were COVID-related.
It’s become a tense time for everyone, but coaches and their staff are starting to adapt to the stress.
“We honestly, probably, sat on pins and needles more with the first ones we had, now that we do it so often,” OU coach Lincoln Riley said Tuesday during his weekly press conference. “It’s, uh, maybe a little bit more used to it.”
Riley described what goes into the routine of the Friday tests.
“Staff goes down there, along with players,” he said, “we get tested and then I get a phone call from (head athletic trainer) Scott Anderson, and it’s either a happy phone call or a sad phone call — as are most of my calls from Scott Anderson.
“Honestly, I mean, we get it done, and then we have things going on as the results are being processed. We’re kind of into our normal Friday routine. So I don’t know that we’re necessarily, like, sitting there waiting on pins and needles. It’s just, you get the results when you get them.”
The calls from Anderson, he said, can be excruciating — especially for a player who’s asymptomatic or just happened to be in the vicinity of someone who tested positive.
“To not be able to play in the game,” Riley said last week, “is a devastating thing.”
Klieman, who said 12 players returned from quarantine last week but then 10 more were flagged this week, said Monday’s results showed everything was A-OK. But he also cautioned that more tests lie ahead this week. There have been multiple rumors and reports out of Manhattan that the OU-KState game — set for 11 a.m. on Fox — could be in danger of postponement if the Wildcats’ test results get worse.
“We meet those thresholds to play as of Monday,” Klieman said, “where, as of today, I hope we can still meet ‘em on Wednesday and Friday.”
Riley has said he prefers to keep COVID numbers close to the vest, citing a competitive disadvantage if the opponent knows his team’s absences. But he later said that was more a privacy issue for the players and their families. On Monday he acknowledged Big 12 teams will be expected share pertinent data with the upcoming opponent if there’s a danger of not meeting the league’s minimum thresholds.
“The way I’ve understood it is if we’ve got any potential issues for being able to play the game, then we’ll try to communicate all those to our conference opponent as much as we possibly can,” Riley said. “And then I would suspect once we have the final test before a game time done, then that’s when the communication with the opposing team will happen.”
With the season opener coming a week later than planned, followed by an open date, the Kansas State game represents three consecutive Saturdays the Sooners have a game scheduled (Iowa State and Texas are coming up). Riley said that could get tricky as teams navigate these new protocols.
“It will be tough to predict,” he said. “This will be the first stretch of consecutive games. Interested to see how that goes — not just for us, but for the rest of the conference. It was good to have a bye week when we did. Glad that we had that scheduled when we did. Happy that we were able to play. I don’t know now.
“You obviously just don’t have that cushion now that you’ve had with three straight important games coming up. We obviously have to continue to handle it better. Understand that a guy makes a mistake or gets popped for contact tracing now, it’s not going to be one game, it’s likely to be multiple games.”
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