This past weekend Oklahoma football was scheduled to play West Virginia. Just days before the game was scheduled to play, the Sooner athletic department announced an abrupt halt to all University of Oklahoma athletic events for the rest of the week. This sudden change that came over the break was due to 35 positive COVID-19 cases.
This Monday, the OU athletic department released said there are currently 27 active cases of COVID-19 with 13 of those cases being staff members across all Sooner sports.
Though no names have been, or probably will be released we can assume that some of those cases may be within the Oklahoma football department as it was announced that head coach Lincoln Riley has called in ex-head coach and Sooner legend Bob Stoops to help with practices for this week.
After five days off of practice amidst the sudden uprise of COVID-19 within the Oklahoma program, it should not come as much of a surprise to anyone within the department to see Stoops’ face at practice as this has been Oklahoma football’s plan B for the season from the job. Luckily for the Sooners, they have not had to call Stoops in until the very final stretch of their season.
Stoops coached for the Sooners for 18 seasons with one national championship and 10 Big 12 championships under his belt before ultimately retiring in 2017, so Oklahoma football is in good company for the next week or so regardless of who is out with coronavirus.
In a press conference earlier this week, Riley revealed that they have had Stoops on the back burner this whole season in case they needed him.
“It’s nice. We’ve kind of had it in our hip pocket this whole time, that if we had any staff member that fell off, we’ve got a Hall of Famer sitting on the bench. That’s a pretty good bench when you can call that guy up,” said Riley.
Stoops seems to be living up to the hype surrounding his cameo at practice this week as Riley shared the team’s experience with the iconic Sooner coach so far this week.
“I don’t think there’s anything that he wouldn’t do, so it was great to have him out there today. It was awesome. Our kids were excited to see him, all of us were excited to see him, so I think he had some fun as well,” said Riley.
The one thing that some have questioned about Bob Stoops’ appearance at practice is the one surrounding how he is even allowed to be there at all. Stoops has actually been working under OU under the title of “special assistant” to the head athletic director at OU after his fall out as a coach in the now crumbled XFL. This title that Stoops holds allows him to assist in Oklahoma football even after moving on from being the head coach of the program.
There is no answer on whether coach Stoops will be making it to the game in the Palace on the Prairie this weekend. Regardless, the Sooners are set to take on Baylor at home this Saturday with another prime-time game at 8 p.m. ET.
