Oklahoma State Football Beating COVID, Cowgirls Basketball Paused
(Oklahoma State University Athletic Media Relations contributed to this story.)
STILLWATER — In a season where college football teams were asked to not only prepare and win games but beat COVID-19 at the same time Oklahoma State has done as well as any team in the nation. The 5-1 and No. 14 Cowboys have been ready for every game and while they had a one-week delay of the Tulsa game to Sept. 19 and a postponement of a game with Baylor from Oct. 17 to now Dec. 12, neither situation was there doing. The Oklahoma State University Athletic Dept. came out with their COVID-19 report through Nov. 15 and there were 25 active cases but none reported in football. Meanwhile, Oklahoma State Cowgirls basketball has been paused.
After three Oklahoma State women’s basketball student-athletes tested positive for COVID, the program is pausing in-person activities. As a result of the timing of the pause, the Cowgirls’ scheduled opener at Little Rock has been canceled.
Of the people who tested positive, none report severe symptoms and none have been hospitalized.
“We’ll get through this,” Cowgirls head coach Jim Littell said. “Our first priority is creating a safe environment for the people in our program. If that means we need to alter our schedule, then that’s what we’ll do. We won’t set an exact date for a return to team activities because of the uncertain nature of the virus. Our focus is to make sure that everyone is well taken care of and to do our part to minimize the spread. We’ll figure out the rest later.”
While the team will not meet in person nor conduct any team or strength and conditioning sessions, it will meet virtually during this time.
The school report lists 158 cases since June 1 when athletes first began reporting back to campus since the pandemic began. Last weeks report had 145 total cases so that means there are 13 new cases since last week.
Football has done particularly well with only six cases reported since the season started and our sources informed us those were almost exclusively coaches and staff.
Football tested Sunday and will test again Tuesday and then on Friday morning prior to Bedlam with Oklahoma on Saturday. Our sources have also informed us that a good share of the previous cases were in football and that men’s basketball has also had most of its players have coronavirus and recover.
