The Oklahoma Football program is in survival mode as they attempt to keep their games with Baylor and West Virginia on their schedule.

Head coach Lincoln Riley has been forced to deploy some emergency measures this week to keep things moving forward, with 35 reported postive COVID-19 tests across the Sooners athletic department.

One of Riley’s plans includes a familiar name to Sooner Nation.

“We brought Coach [Bob] Stoops out of retirement today,” Riley said. “It was great. It was nice. It’s kinda been in our hip pocket this whole time. If we had any staff member that fell off, we got a Hall-of-Famer sitting on the bench. So that’s a pretty good bench when you can call that guy up. And more than that, just how much he cares about this program and I don’t think there’s anything that he wouldn’t do. It was great to have him out there today.”

Stoops had been at the helm of the Sooners bench for 18 seasons before stepping down as head coach in 2017. While he’s no longer on the sidelines, he has remained involved with the program. His son, Drake, is a walk-on receiver for Riley and plays regularly.

The Sooners had to postpone last week’s game with West Virginia, and have rescheduled the game for Dec. 12. Team activities were paused, and players did not return to practice until Monday.

Riley said he was “not optimistic of pessimistic” that the Sooners will be able to play against Baylor this Saturday. But in Tuesday’s press conference he gave the impression that they are ready to play.