Oklahoma Sooners: Nine Players Tests COVID-19 Positive

It’s like this mayhem has become an unending phenomenon adding new numbers to the list almost every day. It has been discouraging to see how coronavirus cases have been increasing across various sports leagues.

Amidst this unprecedented increase in COVID-19 cases, nine new names from the Oklahoma Sooners came in, who have been tested positive for COVID-19. Despite the increasing number of coronavirus cases, Big 12 is pretty optimistic about getting the season organized. However, with such a pace with new positive cases coming up every few weeks, the skepticism is definitely adding up. With the new Oklahoma Sooners cases of nine players testing positive for COVID-19, the conference being able to finish the season has become a BIG question mark.

How Nine Players might have Contracted the Infection?

Oklahoma coach Lincoln Riley says that the players have tested positive after returning from home, which was revealed through contact tracing. Riley made the announcement of nine of the Sooners football players testing positive for coronavirus after the latest round of COVID-19 testing.

With the results coming in, it was evident that the game that was to happen on August 29 will have to be pushed back in September and therefore, Riley sent the players home. The latest Coronavirus test results have blurred the already uncertain future of college football this season.

The Big Ten & Pac-12 have both announced opting-out from the 2020 college football season. The Big Ten said that it would make up for fall during spring. On the other hand, the ACC, Big 12 and SEC have a clear stance of making it out this fall season itself. But, as long as the coronavirus era exists, there will always be one question whether the whole scenario will lead to shutting it down or if it could continue. Oklahoma is set to open the season on September 12 against Missouri State as of now. But that is still a question!

Contact Tracing & Community-based Infections.

With the nine positive COVID-19 results, "a relatively small number" has also been kept in isolation based on contact tracing & "community-based infections' '. Talking about the same, Riley said, "over 75% of our team didn't leave Norman."

It was the Sooners who have had the most sophisticated model for coronavirus control & containment of increasing cases. It was Riley who was the last to have brought his team back to the campus for voluntary practice. Riley brought his team on the campus on July 1, which was two weeks after the Big 12. Given all those precautionary measures, he could not prevent the deadly virus from spreading.

Sooners Positive COVID-19 Cases in the Initial round of Testing.

In the initial round of the test reported 14 positive COVID-19 cases. After returning to the campus on July 1, the Sooners had only one player who had tested positive for a period of five weeks in continuation. It reported zero positive cases from July 8 to July 29, which is a long time span of almost four weeks.

Riley regrets the time off he gave to the team as he did not want the training camps to be too long after the schedule was tweaked. At the same time, he is also sure, he would have also regretted if he had kept the team pinned up for a six- or seven-week training camp. For every college football, the main reason for concern given the situation is the hurdle of clearing the test, which can only be the signal for the season to happen.

Riley, despite these concerns, has become confident about how the test results were minimized had the practice sessions were conducted under a protocol. Riley said, "It's an opportunity for us to continue to learn to educate ourselves because the reality is this isn't the NBA, this is college football. We can try to minimize this risk as much as we possibly want, but we're never going to eliminate them 100 percent. We don't have a bubble. And so, we get that we're all going to have to continue to work to do a better job on all accounts. We're still very confident in the plan that we've had."