Oklahoma football moves up seasoner opener vs Missouri State

Oklahoma football has moved its season opener to Aug. 29

As college football is trying to ensure that there is at least some form of a season in 2020, many different conferences and individual programs have been forced to shuffle their schedules.

Back on July 9, the Big Ten announced their fall sports teams will only play games within their own conference, and the Pac-12 announced the same policy just a day later. This decision has affected teams in each of the Power 5 conferences, and especially teams who are independent.

But despite all the uncertainty surrounding the college football schedule this upcoming fall, the SEC, Big 12, and ACC still intend to play their original schedules, including non-conference games.

Although these three conferences remain committed to playing their original 12-game college football schedule, individual teams have been forced to readjust their own schedule based on the opponents they were planning on facing during non-conference play.

Oklahoma, for one, announced that they will be moving up their season opener against Missouri State. The game was originally slated to take place on Sept. 5, but will now take place a week earlier on Aug. 29.

The NCAA approved a waiver submitted by both teams to change the date

Both the Sooners and Missouri State agreed that it would be in the best interest of both teams to make this schedule change in order to allow more time in between games, which in turn will give the teams more time to figure out how to go about the season during the pandemic.

With Oklahoma making this move, they have secured a free week in between their season opener and their next matchup against Tennessee.

Oklahoma will now have a stretch of five weeks to play three games, which is certainly more preferable than trying to play each week while, at the same time, trying to ensure that coronavirus does not spread within the team.

This is definitely the prudent decision for Oklahoma and Missouri State to make in order to limit any potential spread of the virus, but it is still possible that the game may not take place at all should COVID-19 continue to spread.

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