Report: Missouri State COVID-free, but ‘Oklahoma cannot say the same thing’

Bears president says Saturday's game was "in serious jeopardy" before Friday's test results

John E. Hoover | Sep 11, 2020

Report: Missouri State COVID-free, but ‘Oklahoma cannot say the same thing’ /

Missouri State’s football team was tested Friday and is COVID-free, but “Oklahoma cannot say the same thing,” according to MSU’s president.

Per a report in Friday’s Springfield News-Leader, university president Clif Smart told the school’s board of governors that Saturday’s season-opener between the Bears and Sooners was, at one point, in serious jeopardy.

As photos of the team bus in Oklahoma were circulated on social media Friday, News-Leader reporter Wyatt Wheeler wrote that Smart said all 72 members of MSU’s travel party had returned zero positive COVID-19 tests and that the team was on the road to Norman.

“Oklahoma cannot say the same thing,” Smart told the newspaper. “The game was in serious jeopardy until we got final test results this morning and I better not say anything else because I don’t know who’s listening.”

Numerous message boards that follow Oklahoma indicated several OU players had either tested positive or would be quarantined after contact tracing determined potential exposure. An OU source said later Friday that the game being played was never actually in doubt.

While OU needs a home game and whatever revenue comes with seating capacity reduced to 25 percent, Missouri State is counting on the $600,000 payday from the Sooners.

The schools agreed this summer that OU would conduct all of Missouri State’s COVID testing. Sooner athletic director Joe Castiglione said on Toby Rowland’s morning show on KREF that OU has spent “north of $430,000 on testing and PPE” over the course of this offseason and preseason.

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Published Sep 11, 2020

JOHN E. HOOVER

John is an award-winning journalist whose work spans five decades in Oklahoma, with multiple state, regional and national awards as a sportswriter at various newspapers. During his newspaper career, John covered the Dallas Cowboys, the Kansas City Chiefs, the Oklahoma Sooners, the Oklahoma State Cowboys, the Arkansas Razorbacks and much more. In 2016, John changed careers, migrating into radio and launching a YouTube channel, and has built a successful independent media company, DanCam Media. From there, John has written under the banners of Sporting News, Sports Illustrated, Fan Nation and a handful of local and national magazines while hosting daily sports talk radio shows in Oklahoma City, Tulsa and statewide. John has also spoken on Capitol Hill in Oklahoma City in a successful effort to put more certified athletic trainers in Oklahoma public high schools. Among the dozens of awards he has won, John most cherishes his national "Beat Writer of the Year" from the Associated Press Sports Editors, Oklahoma's "Best Sports Column" from the Society of Professional Journalists, and Two "Excellence in Sports Medicine Reporting" Awards from the National Athletic Trainers Association. John holds a bachelor's degree in Mass Communications from East Central University in Ada, OK. Born and raised in North Pole, Alaska, John played football and wrote for the school paper at Ada High School in Ada, OK. He enjoys books, movies and travel, and lives in Broken Arrow, OK, with his wife and two kids.