NORMAN, Oklahoma – Nine Oklahoma football players did COVID-19 tests this week when the Sooners returned to campus after a six-day break at preseason camp.
There had only been positive control for football since the initial admission control in July. The positive check was delayed last week, just before Sooners coach Lincoln Riley sent to his players’ home until Friday.
Riley said some players had been remote because of contacts from the Oklahoma State Department of Health.
“Disappointed by the news, ” said Riley. “We’ve done a wonderful job and you know that when you give your players time, that’s a threat.
“The two times we had a lot of cases were when we brought our players originally, and here, after a few days, we didn’t have any organized team activity. Array… It’s an opportunity to keep learning, keep educating us because the truth is it’s not the NBA, it’s school football.
“We can try to minimize those dangers as much as we want, but we can never do them 100%. We don’t have a bubble.”
Riley said all the positive facets were known as “community” infections and that more than 75% of the team had stayed in Norman during the break.
“It would be quite simple to say now that I’m sorry,” Riley said of the resolution of sending players home. “I also feel that if I stay on a team stuck here in a six- or seven-week educational camp, I’ll probably regret it, too.”
The outbreak highlights the difficulties of containing the virus on a giant computer. Oklahoma’s general student population will return to campus this week.
“The truth is that our players probably wouldn’t be in this facility all the time,” Riley said. “That’s the truth. We don’t have a bubble. We do not have a hotel where we can accommodate them and not let them out but to come to elegance and come here.
“For us, we will be personal, we as a team will have to do a greater task of educating and mitigating as much as we can when we are not in this facility. It has to be a learning pleasure for us. “