With about two weeks left before the first game, the Oklahoma Sooner football team is getting to meet the challenges of a new season and the adjustments forced by the Chinese coronavirus pandemic.

OU had started fall drills early because the season opener at home against Missouri State was originally schedule for August 31. That game was moved back to September 12 after Tennessee and Army canceled games against Oklahoma.

As a result, OU coach Lincoln Riley gave his players a few days off in mid-August.

 “We didn’t think it would be the right thing to do to go six or seven weeks of training camp before you play a game,” Riley said in a press conference. “We knew at some point, we were going to give our guys a break. We honestly were planning on doing it later than what we did but that need changed it.”

Riley said OU also timed the break during a tumultuous week in August when leagues were canceling seasons and there was a chance that no football would be played this fall.

And by taking the break early, Riley said it would give players more time to recover if they got infected with the coronavirus prior to the start of the season.

As of August 15, OU had nine players testing positive for the coronavirus and a handful of players who have been isolated due to contact tracing by the Oklahoma State Department of Health.

“I was disappointed by the news,” Riley said.

Once the OSDH clears them, they rejoin the team.

“We are very aggressive about removing anybody that can any potential contact,” Riley said. “We remove them and put them in quarantine.”

 “We are never going to be able to eliminate the risk 100%,” Riley said. 

Riley said the cases happened when the players first reported for fall drills and then after the August break.

“We are still very confident in the plan that we’ve had and we’ve more than a month long period of success when our players were here with us every day, we were able to substantially minimize positive tests. And we are very confident in the protocols that we’ve had a positive test.”

Caleb Kelly, Cason Grant, Marcus Hicks and Justin Harrington have had lower extremity injuries that required medical attention. Harrington got hurt before he arrived on campus.

“They will all miss a substantial part of this season,” Riley said.

Players and staff members have their temperatures checked daily and fill out a form about the coronavirus exposure.

Will college football have a legitimate playoff this fall?

“It’s hard for me to even think about a playoff right now,” Riley said. “More than ever, it’s important for us to be focused on the day to day. Because this does change. If you try to think about two or three months from now, I mean this thing changes about every day. It can almost be kind of maddening in a way.”

OU defensive coordinator Alex Grinch said the team had five players last season that season-ending knee injuries.

Grinch isn’t expecting any sympathy from opponents.

 “Ultimately, no one cares – the world doesn’t care what you are lacking,” Grinch said. “Once you are in the moment, you just stay in the moment, you don’t have time to worry too much about it.

“Our depth chart has not lasted a day in two seasons now here at Oklahoma. That’s just the reality of what we are in.”

Grinch said he was “sick to his stomach” about Kelly having to go through knee injuries two years in a row. “You know he’s going to attack it and you know he’s going to be better than ever,” Grinch said of Kelly.

Grinch said the defense is working to “dual train” some players so that they can move over in case of injuries and OU can get their best 11 defensive players on the field at one time.

“That gives us a more fluid roster and you’ve got to anticipate that,” Grinch said. “It’s created some off-season opportunity for some guys.”

OU went through their first scrimmage on August 18.

“The chief negative I thought was that the tackling was very poor,” Grinch said. “That was to be expected but at the same let’s not make excuses.”

He said one of the reasons why you scrimmage is to improve tackling.

“It’s not tag football,” Grinch said.

But he said players knew where they were supposed to be and they gave tremendous effort in the scrimmage.

“I enjoyed watching the film,” Grinch said. “There’s a lot of thing we’ve got to get correct… but there were more positives than negatives.”

Riley called it a typical first penalties with “a lot of mistakes and penalties.”

Reduced schedule for Missouri State

Ten teams canceled their games this fall with the Missouri State Bears. MSU still has the September 12 game against Oklahoma in Norman. And, Missouri will play a home and home schedule with Central Arkansas.

That’s a total of three games against two teams.

MSU is a member of the Missouri Valley Conference, which has canceled fall competition and will try to resume football in the spring.

Missouri State, coached by first-year head coach Bobby Petrino, is preparing as if they had a full slate.

“I thought they did a good job at going out and working hard,” Petrino said of  fall practices. “They were excited to hear the Oklahoma game was on and that we’re working on two other games.”

MSU quarterback Jaden Johnson, who transferred from Southern Mississippi, is expected to be the starter against Oklahoma.

Johnson was a four-star prospect in high school who originally committed to play for Petrino when he was head coach at Louisville (where he was fired).