Lincoln Riley on election day without practice

Count Sooners coach Lincoln Riley as one of those who isn't completely on board with the NCAA's newly passed rule that prohibits athletic-related activities on Election Day.

“I certainly don't have any issue with making time available for everybody to go vote,” Riley said Thursday. “I think you could have possibly seen a mandate two hours out of the day or whatever that they're not in class. … To take the whole day to me, I think it's a little bit of an overreaction.

“Guys being able to vote is super important. We've already done so much around that. So no question, we've got to get them out there to vote, but could we have found a way to vote and still live the rest of our lives and go on with that? I think that's very possible. But at least the NCAA was responsive on something.”

Riley and the Sooners held a voter registration meeting for the players following a late-August unity march.

Riley has been much more proactive about facilitating voting than he was in previous years, though he wasn't the head coach during the 2016 election.

“Our goal has always been that when they walk out of there that they're ready for the `real world' and if they're not then we should take that personally,” Riley said. “But has this added another layer or something that you focus on more? Sure it has. There's certainly been more education and I think a lot of the education for me has been from our players and their experiences and kind of their evolving views on the world.

“I think it' s been enlightening and I think it's helped us grow as a program.”