The speculation started running rampant early Saturday evening. If Oklahoma could take down Baylor, when maybe the Sooners battle at West Virginia should just be canceled this week since it’s already known it’s OU vs. Iowa State will be the Big 12 championship.

Head coach Lincoln Riley was adamant Saturday night about the Sooners wanting to play the game, and he went even more in-depth on that topic Tuesday afternoon.

“Really thankful the Big 12 did a really nice job of planning and building in these weekends and giving us the opportunity to make this game up,” said Riley during a Zoom call. “It’s a game that we need, game that is very important to us in our climb as a football team and continue to make the improvements we need to play our best ball at the end of the year, which I think is so critical.

“I think, too, having missed those five days the previous week, this week is important to us to keep improving certainly for this game and the challenge that we know West Virginia is going to be. Playing a really good football team.”

The argument against the game is pretty obvious. There doesn’t feel like there’s a spot in the college football playoff on the line this year unlike seasons’ past. Traveling across the country in the era of COVID-19 seems almost unnecessary in the grand scheme of things.

But Riley kept pointing toward the fact his team needs to play games. And that shutting down the facilities for five days less than two weeks ago threw another big-time wrinkle into things.

OU’s offense wasn’t impressive in the 27-14 win vs. Baylor, so any chance to get back out there and improve, is worth it.

“Just for us to play the quality of ball and to make the improvements that we need to make, we need to play,” Riley said.

Barnes a factor

It’s tough to find silver linings with COVID-19 and the football season, but there is one with the fact nobody is losing eligibility this season.

Something like that could be a huge benefit to redshirt junior Robert Barnes. He’s spent most of the season at linebacker before moving back to free safety for last week’s game.

“I think what this year has shown us and what he has shown us is the ability to play both,” Riley said. “It’s an important thing, and he’s been an important member of the special teams all year. He’s done some really good things there and did the other night as well.”

Barnes’ career at OU has been marred by injuries, and he even missed some time earlier this season, but he’s making the most of his chances right now.

It remains to be seen if Barnes will stay at safety the rest of the way or move back to linebacker, but Riley was quick to say Barnes has earned the right to be in the conversation for playing time based on his performances on defense and special teams.

Fingers crossed with testing

It just takes one bad COVID-19 testing day to throw everything off track. OU has found that out the hard way in the last couple of weeks. The Sooners played against Baylor despite missing at least 16 prominent players for COVID-19/contact tracing or injury.

The first test this week for WVU was a good one, but Riley is still knocking on wood the Sooners will put themselves in a good spot the rest of the week.

“We certainly hope to be in a better position than we’ve been in the last two weeks. I think we have a chance to be,” Riley said. “I hesitate to say that because you’re only as good as your next test. We’ve still got a couple to go this week.

“We’ve taken some extreme measures, the biggest being postponing a football game, and shutting down our facilities for five days. We’re banking on those things paying off and getting us back on the right side of this deal.”