Riley not worried about perception of Big 12 this year
Sooners coach Lincoln Riley said he isn' t worried about the perception of the Big 12 nationally after his team has dropped two games and Texas fell last week — as well as the league's not-so-stellar showing during its round of non-conference games to start the season.
“It's a different year,” Riley said. “So no, I'm not, honestly. I'm kinda still hunkered down in the things that we have to fix and do better here. I don't know that I've paid, honestly, a whole lot of attention to it.”
Riley said the circumstances of this season will lead to more upsets than normal.
“I think that's the nature of this,” Riley said. “I think it's gonna be the most unpredictable college football year of all time. I think you've just gotta hang in there and keep swinging. Who the hell knows what's gonna happen? In our league or on a national scene.
“I just think it's very volatile right now.”
Sooners announces COVID testing numbers
OU athletes i n al l sports went through 584 COVID-19 tests and staffers went through 219 last week with only one positive result, the OU athletics department announced Monday.
Two active cases remain among athletes with none on the staff. Since testing began in July ,165 athletes and 10 staffers have tested positive
with only t wo active cases among athletes remaining. The rest have recovered.
Five weeks ago, 9% of the tests came back positive but that number has progressed since then, from 4% to 1% and the last two weeks to 0.2%.
OU did not release numbers broken down by sport.
Iowa State remains a thorn in Sooners' side
In totaling its last four games against each of its nine Big 12 breath r en, OU has won 15 of those 36 games by 18 or more points.
There's only two teams the Sooner shave not reached that mark against—Iowa State and Texas.
Even though the Long horns haven' t been great recently, they've been solid and it's a rivalry game, so that's to be expected.
But Riley isn' t going to offer up any reasons why the Cyclones have been able to play the Sooners close even when other teams in the league haven't consistently. Iowa State is the only Big 12 team during that stretch that the Sooners haven't beaten by more than 10 points at l east once.
“I don't know,” Riley said. “They are a good team. We probably moved the ball on them better than anybody in the league the last several years. I think we've matched up pretty well with them offensively.”
Riley is right there, though t he Sooners have matched up with everyone well offensively recently during a string where they' ve had the most consistently explosive offensive in college football with three quarterbacks who have either won the Heisman Trophy or finished second in voting for the award.