The closer we come to August 1, the closer we come to a decision to simplify or even call off the 2020 Oklahoma football season.
The Big 12 is hoping — some would say with a dwindling degree of hope — that it can play college football this fall. The bet going forward is that it probably won’t be a full schedule, if there indeed is fall football, and could easily end up as conference games only to minimize travel and help protect against coronavirus exposure.
The Big Ten and Pac-12 have already announced that is the direction they are taking, and by the end of this month, the Big 12, SEC and ACC will announce their plans of action.
Oklahoma has reported no new COVID-19 cases in its last two weeks of testing. But that has not been the case with other programs in the Big 12 and around the country, and therein lies the problem. The protocols that are in place at OU appear to be helping lower COVID exposure for the players and staff, but what happens when the season starts and they have to leave the Oklahoma training bubble, or when the rest of the student body returns to campus.
Those remain huge unknowns at this point and could have a big impact on whether or not to proceed with organized football of any kind in the fall.
For weeks now, Lincoln Riley has been saying that all options need to remain on the table, even postponing the college football season until next spring.
It is far from ideal and poses its own set of issues, but a spring college football season is doable, Riley contends, and should be an option over dismissing the 2020 season in its entirety. And the support for that thinking appears to be building.
What is to become of the 2020 Oklahoma football season?
Spring football already exists, albeit in a much different form than would be the case under a deferred season. Looking ahead to that possibility, the biggest problem would be the uncertainty of what players who are eligible for the NFL Draft might elect to do. You couldn’t blame them for wanting to opt out of a spring season to prevent injury and preserve their draft stock. And we’re talking about some of a team’s best players.
In Oklahoma’s case, that would potentially affect RB Kennedy Brooks and center Creed Humphrey, both of whom specifically elected to return for the 2020 season, and several others on both offense and defense.
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The worst-case scenario, of course, is no college football in the fall or next spring. That outcome may seem unthinkable now, but it clearly is in the realm of possibility, especially if there is no effective vaccine available.
Say there is no 2020 college football season in any form — and believe me, if a fall season is ultimately cancelled, there won’t be universal support for pushing it into spring — think about the ramifications that will have for Oklahoma. By the spring of 2021, the Sooners are likely to have not just one but two former No. 1 quarterback recruits on campus.
Spencer Rattler was the country’s top-rated quarterback in the 2019 class. He sat behind Jalen Hurts and Tanner Mordecai last season and appeared in just three games for OU. He is anxiously awaiting his chance to move into the starting role, which is widely expected to be this season.
Earlier this month, Caleb Williams, the No. 1 quarterback recruit in the 2021 national class committed to the Sooners. He still has another year of high school remaining in Washington, D.C., but if there is no college season this fall, chances are good he won’t be playing this fall, either. In which case, the highly touted 2021 recruit (No. 8 player overall) will quickly turn his attention to the next stop in his career progression: life as an Oklahoma Sooner.
If Williams graduates from high school early, he can enroll at OU for the spring or summer sessions. That would put him in direct competition with Rattler for the starting job. That also would mean that either Mordecai or true freshman Chandler Morris, the other two quarterbacks on the Sooner roster, or both, would likely leave the program.
Besides both being the No. 1 quarterbacks in their respective recruiting classes, Williams and Rattler have something else in common. Both were voted Elite 11 MVPs, which is an invitation-only quarterback competition featuring the best high school quarterbacks in the country.
Some would say that is a great problem to have: two exceptional quarterback talents competing for the same job. But only one is going to win the starting job, and the other is not going to be content standing on the sidelines with a headset on waiting for his opportunity, not when he can be starting at any number of programs around the country.
Two-quarterback systems have shown over and over that they don’t work, and Lincoln Riley has not shown he is a fan of employing two QBs interchangeably (Baker Mayfield and Kyler Murray, for example).
Here is something else to take into account with Williams. He may be pledged to Oklahoma for now, but his verbal commitment is not binding until he signs a national letter of intent, which won’t be before December at the earliest. Other schools can still recruit him during this time.
Williams has openly said that he doesn’t mind having to compete for the quarterback job, which he knows he’s going to have to do at OU, with Rattler already having a year in Riley’s offensive system and the designated heir apparent.
If there is a 2020 season, Rattler will get the opportunity to live up to his high expectations. If he does well, it will be even harder for Williams to come in and unseat him, at least not as a freshman. But it also might mean that Rattler could decide to leave early for the NFL.
There are plenty of moving parts in play here. Sooner fans can only hope that when the puzzle parts start falling in place, the picture that is revealed conforms to Oklahoma’s master football plan and is not in conflict with it.