Oklahoma football: A 2020 season is dependent on students returning to campus
By Chip Rouse
While continuing to live under the bubble of pandemic-related health and safety restrictions, contingency plans on what Oklahoma football can or will look like in the fall of 2020 are being moved around like an old-fashioned shell game.
Will there be college football in the fall, what form will it take, will the season start late and extend into the new year and what if it starts and then is forced to suspend play or shutdown? These are just some of the questions that Big 12 athletic directors and head coaches, like Joe Castiglione and Lincoln Riley,are grappling with in these uncertain and uncharted times.
Because of all the uncertainty in looking down the road, there are no locked-down answers to all the what-ifs.
The road map that Oklahoma and the rest of the Big 12 schools are presently following and planning for is that there will be a 20202 college football season.
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Consistent with that plan, all 10 Big 12 schools have announced their intentions in recent weeks to have students on campus for the fall semester.
The NCAA’s chief medical officer, Dr. Brian Hainline, told Associated Press reporters Cliff Brunt and Stephen Hawkins that widespread testing will be critical if football is to be played in the fall.
Brunt and Hainline interviewed officials at every Big 12 school, and what they learned in almost every case was that the schools are planning for football in the fall and current preparations are for it to start as scheduled, the first week in September.
Kansas State head coach Chris Kleiman, who is in his second season following Bill Snyder’s long run leading the K-State program, said his team would need two months of workouts and practices to be ready for the season.
OU’s Riley, in a teleconference earlier this spring with reporters who cover the Sooners and the Big 12, said, “We could have 15 to 20 practices and be ready to play, without a doubt,” adding that by September the world is going to need football.
Joey Helmer, OU Insider for 247Sports, reported on an email sent this week by University of Oklahoma interim president Joe Harroz in which he announced OU’s first phase of reopening the Norman campus would commence the week of May 11.
Beginning next Monday the operations staff will be allowed back to begin preparing for the fall semester followed by the return of some research faculty who require physical access to facilities.
Complete health screenings will be mandatory for all operations personnel and research faculty who are part of the initial phase.
“This initial phase will be instructive, allowing us to implement and refine protective measures, including the use of PPE (personal protective equipment), heightened social distancing and hygiene practices, increased cleaning and more,” Harroz said.
“The first controlled phase, as well as ongoing consultation with experts regarding the most up-to-date knowledge of the disease will inform subsequent phase protocols for reopening,” he said.
In a related but separate announcement regarding the 2020 football season, the Dallas Morning News reported that Big 12 Media Days, which was scheduled for July 21-22 at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas, will still be held, but by virtual means, because of COVID-19 health and safety concerns.