It’s offseason for Oklahoma football, but this time of year is one of the most important in shaping what we will see in the fall.
This year, however, the football facility and program at OU is like ghost town because of universal efforts to mitigate the dangerous spread of the coronavirus.
There is a lot of uncertainty still about the unprecedented worldwide crisis surrounding COVID-19. The one thing we do know is that we will come out of hibernation at some point. What will the resulting world be like when we do?
Spring practice is traditionally the time when the players get back together for organized team activities, including football-specific drills and exercises designed to help the body stay in football shape at a midway point between the final game of the previous season and the fall practice kicking off the new season.
It also is a time to acclimate new players with collegiate football operations and the team systems and ways of operating. For returning players, it is an opportunity to regroup and adjust to any coaching changes or adjustments from the previous season. In other words, spring is an important time in the college football calendar.
This is the first time, at least in my lifetime, which spans more than seven decades, that I can remember spring practice not being held at Oklahoma. At least the playing field is level across the college football landscape, with everyone being affected in the same way.
The teams that stand to be affected the most by the cancellation of all organized spring activities are those with a number of new players and players moving into starting roles, especially, at quarterback, for the first time.
Oklahoma, for one, falls in that category, with a new quarterback moving into the starting role for the fourth consecutive season, the loss of a number of key players on defense and another highly-ranked recruiting class coming on board, a number of whom are already enrolled and were on campus and available to participate in spring team activities.
Now it appears it might be late summer. or during the normally scheduled fall practice time, before the student-athletes and team personnel are able to come back together in preparation for the 2020 season. That in itself, shouldn’t prevent the Sooners from having another strong season and contend for an eighth national championship as well as a 14th Big 12 championship.
But it will require an adjustment on the part of everyone involved — players, coaches, academic and athletic personnel, as well as the fans. The way we all live, including the way we work and what we do for recreation, is going to be different for the time being, and perhaps for a lot longer than we might expect.
We will come out of it, however, and perhaps stronger and more united — as a country, as communities and even as college athletic teams, like the Oklahoma football Sooners.
Another thing we all need to prepare for is while at some point the growth curve of the coronavirus will flatten and track downward, the virus itself is not going to go away. People will still need and likely will want to practice preventive measures to protect their health and well being. And that includes not wanting to pack into college stadiums like sardines out of concerns for what we have learned in dealing with the coronavirus.
That might mean that we could see Oklahoma’s string of 129-plus consecutive sellouts at home football games come to an end. If that were to happen sometime in the next season, it is important to understand that it is situationally driven and says nothing about a loss of interest or fan support for Oklahoma football.
It is all part of the new normal that we are all going through, together, and are going to have adjust to in the days, weeks and even months ahead.