Report: 9 Oklahoma student-athletes positive for COVID-19 after week off from practice
The Oklahoma Sooners had gone a long time without having any players test positive for COVID-19, but that streak has now come to an end.
According to coach Lincoln Riley, 9 Sooner student-athletes have tested positive in the latest round of testing.
That follows a week where the Sooners didn’t have practices, and players were free to leave campus, according to Riley:
Oklahoma coach Lincoln Riley said Sooners had 9 student-athletes test positive for COVID after players had a week off from practice
— Brett McMurphy (@Brett_McMurphy) August 15, 2020
Riley says letting the players go home/have time off was because the players were worn down mentally from all the uncertainty of not knowing whether there would be a season.
— SoonerScoop.com (@SoonerScoop) August 15, 2020
Riley said 75% of the players on the team stayed in Norman during the week break:
As @NicoleAuerbach has pointed out, Lincoln Riley never said they have traced the 9 new positive cases to players that went home. He did say all 9 were community based infections & 75% of the team stayed in Norman. pic.twitter.com/MarxwTsOES
— Eddie Radosevich (@Eddie_Rado) August 15, 2020
The positive news is that most of the players who stayed on campus didn’t contract the virus. If we’re going to have a college football season this fall, this seems to indicate that players will need to stay on campus the whole time.