If Oklahoma head coach Lincoln Riley had one message for the OU march of solidarity for social justice Friday morning, it’s that we’re all in this together.

Riley, flanked by Creed Humphrey and Chanse Sylvie, and the rest of the program behind them with arms locked, marched from the practice fields down to the South Oval. Riley gave a short speech at the Unity Garden, followed by a prayer by outside receivers coach Dennis Simmons before the team returned back to their facilities.

“There's been a lot of buildup to this,” Riley said. “I think our players, I commend them, our players have been a part of potential policy changes, they've been a part of changes within the university and within the athletic department.

“We always push on our players to try to do more and more and more. That doesn't just apply to the football field. It doesn't just apply to the classroom. We had a great meeting yesterday. As I said out there, it was a pretty emotional meeting with our guys yesterday.

“They looked to us as a staff for guidance. We knew we wanted to do something together as a team and the decision was made late last night/early this morning what exactly that would be.”

It has been almost 2,000 days since OU football players were marching back in 2015 to protest the racist SAE fraternity video.

From that dark period led to a lot of bright moments, something Riley is hoping the social and racial justice conversations can spark this time around, too.

“From the incident in 2015, there were positive outcomes that came from that,” Riley said. “Not ever completely fixing the problem, but a lot of positive changes made on this campus as a result of that with those players and coaches that year.”

OU practiced Thursday and had a scheduled practice Friday but decided to cancel it, saying their march together would be how they would spend their day as a team.

The racial unrest conversations aren’t new at OU, but they’ve been taken to a different level now that the team is all together again. Instead of Zoom meetings, it’s face-to-face and raw emotions being poured out. The uncomfortable conversations are a necessity, Riley said.

“We don't have all the answers. I sure don't,” Riley said. “But the problems out there are real and as we talk and as we discuss, we can't come up with a better solution than unity. I just don't know how you have unity and not include yourself and every part of your program in that.

“It's about taking positive steps and keeping the faith, and let's don't let this be a thing that divides us even further. Why can't this be the thing that brings us all even more together? I've seen that with this team. I saw it yesterday. I've seen it on multiple occurrences where something terrible brings us closer together. It's not easy.

“We just wanna do our part because it's gonna take everybody.”

Even before the march, which lasted around 20 minutes total, the emotions were apparent on the faces of the players and staff. It was easy to see in Riley’s face.

He said being in the room and having those conversations and hearing what some of his players have experienced, it’s eye-opening and anybody would be emotional hearing it.

“I’ve been very surprised about some of the things I’ve heard,” Riley said. “I grew up a white male. I have not lived or had to experience some of the things that a lot of my players have had to. As much as you want to read about it, this or that, it’s different when it hits home and when it’s somebody that you care about.”

“That has absolutely been a learning experience for me. Every step of it. It's definitely made me more aware and I hope will equip me and our staff, and not just for our players, our staff members too. But I hope it will equip us to continue doing a better job of leading them.”

Those conversations extend toward law enforcement as well.

“Our team has had conversations with certain members of the law enforcement team in this area and they've been very, very productive and again, just another example that we can all work together, whether it's black, white, civilian, law enforcement — whatever tags you want to put. If people are motivated and listen to each other, we can work together.”

It's why the team stopped at the Unity Garden. It’s the symbol – the message OU is trying to spread.

“Nobody can do it by themselves,” Riley said. “I know there’s a lot of eyes on us, a lot of eyes on the program and we always want to use that in positivity in any situation and this one being no different.”