There are things you learn with Lincoln Riley as Oklahoma’s head coach. He’s rarely, if ever, going to confirm injuries or give a timetable of when somebody will return.

Now in the era of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, we found out Tuesday afternoon OU football will no longer release its specific COVID-19 numbers.

The program had been incredibly transparent since arriving back on campus July 1, but with the season opener just days away, the tone has changed.

“As far as active cases I think we're to the point now where we're playing games, and obviously any active case or contact trace is going to have game repercussions and so just like we would with an injury, we're not gonna — we’ve just made the decision to not broadcast that,” said Riley in a Zoom call. “I know we've been probably the most transparent school in the country up until then, but you don't want to give your team a competitive disadvantage so we're not going to do that.”

The COVID-19 numbers will still be released by OU, and there’s no doubt the football program will be included in the university’s overall numbers. But for the last two months, the OU athletics department had been breaking things down by football and men’s and women’s basketball to give a fully transparent look at each program.

That won’t be the situation anymore, concerning positive cases and active cases.

Coinciding with that, Riley did not confirm nor deny reports that Jalen Redmond has decided to opt-out for the 2020 season. Riley said a couple of weeks ago, when the topic was Kennedy Brooks, that Riley has chosen to let the individual player handle any such announcement.

As of now, Redmond and Brooks are the only two members reported to have chosen the opt-out option.

No suspension news

Riley also would not clarify any new news regarding the suspensions of running back Rhamondre Stevenson, wide receiver Trejan Bridges and defensive end Ronnie Perkins.

The trio missed the Peach Bowl last season and is expected to miss a healthy chunk of the 2020 season as well.

“The three, guys that were previously out, no new update on that right now, could come at any point but certainly no update on that right now,” Riley said.

There is nothing new to suggest that any of the three players will be available Saturday or for at least the first few games.

Left tackle up for grabs

Listening to offensive line coach Bill Bedenbaugh speak a couple of weeks ago, it’s readily apparent he’s content with the depth that has been developing among his group.

You can go through the guards, center and right tackle spot and feel incredibly confident as an OU fan about what 2020 has in store.

But left tackle? That was a mystery in 2019 as Erik Swenson and R.J. Proctor did what they could. The question mark lingers heading into Saturday’s opener, but Riley isn’t worrying about finding someone to fill the role.

“You can sit there and imagine a lot of different combinations we could end up playing a lot of snaps with,” Riley said. “And I think we have the guys to do it. We’re equipped to handle it. There are a lot of interesting options out there between Erik Swenson, Adrian Ealy. Anton Harrison has had a tremendous camp. Stacey Wilkins.

“And we’ve got some guys who have the flexibility to play multiple positions, especially some of those older guys so that has given us a lot of key flexibility. We’ve tried to leave the young guys at the same spot as much as we can to really give them a chance to compete.”

Depth chart coming?

Another Riley staple has been the lack of any urgency about a depth chart. With the unusual nature of this season, you knew that would be the case for 2020.

But he says they’re close, and competition battles have been solid.

“We’re close on a depth chart. The competitions have certainly been there, but they’ve definitely been different,” Riley said. “It’s been more difficult to conduct competitions and try to get guys enough reps and make up for lost time.”

Riley said last week that the quarterback race between Spencer Rattler and Tanner Mordecai was a good indicator of that, with Mordecai missing nearly 75 percent of camp.

What he stressed, though, was a Week 1 depth chart means absolutely nothing as you head to the second game and the second month and so on.

Easy examples are Marquise Brown and Rodney Anderson in 2017. Brown didn’t even play a snap in OU’s win at Ohio State. Anderson didn’t break out until halfway through the year.

The message? Just keep competing.

“The key is competitions will continue to be ongoing,” Riley said. “A lot of people look at the first game as some type of finality. There’s a lot of competition and lot of ups and downs yet to happen.

“I think the key is we’re going to have competition going because, one, that’s just a hallmark of this program and, two, because we are going to need more bodies this year. We’re going to keep developing guys and keeping them engaged and have guys ready to play.”