Oklahoma football opens preseason training camp with no COVID cases
By Chip Rouse
Training camp for 2020 Oklahoma football got underway on Friday as the Sooners held their first official preseason practice session.
Under NCAA rules the Sooners were able open training camp a little earlier than most because of their scheduled season-opening game on Aug. 29 against Missouri State.
The Sooners are coming off of a week of OTAs (organized team activities) that followed three weeks of voluntary workouts, during which the players worked out on their own without any coaches present and used the time to get better individually.
Oklahoma delayed the start of voluntary workouts until July 1, several weeks behind other major programs, with the intent of making sure the right protocols and environmental conditions were in place to protect the student-athletes and support staff from COVID-19 exposure.
It appears OU has absolutely gone about its preparations and procedures in the right way amid continuing COVID concerns and that the players and staff members are following COVID-related procedures and taking the situation very seriously.
After the initial round of COVID testing on July 1, 111 Sooner players were tested and 14 came up positive. Since then, no new cases have been reported, covering four weekly testing cycles, the latest being July 29.
As a result, the entire team was together for the first day of formalized training camp on Friday.
Head coach Lincoln Riley told reporters on Friday that they’re not changing a whole lot about practices.
"“We’ve done team drills, guys up next to each other. And as everybody knows, we tested again and had no positives, so we feel what we’re doing is working,” he said."
Riley told Sooner Sports TV that it has been 143 days since the team’s last true practice. Oklahoma held just one day of spring practice before the NCAA and Big 12 shuttered all spring sports activities around the country.
There’s a lot of talent out here, Riley said, and “it looks like we have a lot of contributors and a lot of guys that could potentially have a lot of good roles for this team. I don’t think there’s a position that we won’t have a lot of competitive depth.”