Happy Hump Day, friends and fans!

On Tuesday, the Oklahoma Sooners announced their plans to officially re-open their athletic facilities for voluntary football workouts on Monday, July 1.

Late last week, the Big 12 Conference announced all football student-athletes could return to campus for voluntary workouts beginning on June 15, but the powers at OU have remained steadfast in moving forward with a timeline that they felt suited their department best.

Depending on where you look around the nation, Oklahoma is taking up to a month longer that other programs to move ahead with this step, and it’s understandable. It also keeps in line with the highly cautious approach both AD Joe Castiglione and Lincoln Riley have set out on from the start. Nevertheless, if all goes according to plan, this timetable should allow the Sooners ample time to prepare for the 2020 season, keeping optimism alive for the foreseeable future.

Now onto today’s Hot Links! Spencer Rattler still faces questions concerning his “ego”, Cedarian Lamb talks about the ‘Boys, the L.A. Dodgers are leading the way in coronavirus testing sites and more!

OU Links

• Speaking of Oklahoma’s major announcement from yesterday, the Tulsa World’s Eric Bailey collected the thoughts and feelings from some of the players’ parents and guardians, gauging their opinions on the relatively late timing. Most of them view it as a necessary measure that puts player health and safety first.
• CBS Sports’ Danny Kanell recently talked about Spencer Rattler and the expectations that surround him at Oklahoma. The former five-star QB recruit spent the last football season learning behind Jalen Hurts, and all signs point to him picking up the starting job this fall.

• SI Sooners’ John Hoover is doing a series on Oklahoma’s national championship in 2000 and its significance 20 years later. Although OU hasn’t been able to reach the top of the college football mountaintop in two decades, its currently experiencing one of the longest stretches of sustained success in program history.
• ESPN’s Bill Connelly ranked his top 25 best college football teams to not win a national championship, and five different Oklahoma squads made the cut, including the 1986 and 1987 Switzer-led teams at Nos. 2 and 3, respectively.
• Speaking of which, our own bracket of the best natty-less OU football teams rages on with the quarterfinal round. Make sure to enter the tweet thread below to cast your vote for each of the four matchups.

• Dallas Cowboys first-round draft pick CeeDee Lamb sat down for a virtual interview with Nick Eatman to discuss a number of topics from the WR’s thoughts on where he was drafted to wearing the iconic No. 88.

• In case you missed it, Kamiar was joined by the Dallas Morning News’ Spenser Davis on this week’s episode of the Oklahoma Breakdown Podcast. The two of them discussed some rather interesting past player debates, the warmth of Tom Herman’s seat, the status of high school athletics in the Sooner State and more! As the usual warning goes, this pod does contain some NSFW language.

Around the Sports World

• Should the suspended NBA season resume, Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban recently pitched an interesting idea regarding how the association could determine its lowest-seeded playoff teams. What his suggestion ultimately comes down to is a play-in tournament. I like this idea a lot, actually.
• The Los Angeles Dodgers baseball stadium is now the largest COVID-19 testing site in the state of California, with a capacity to test up to 6,000 patients per day.
• New Orleans Saints veteran DE Noah Spence reportedly suffered an ACL injury while preparing for late summer training camp.
• After watching Michael Jordan’s greatness in ‘The Last Dance’, CBS Sports’ Colin Ward-Henninger and Sam Quinn joined forces to rank the greatest NBA MVP snubs of all-time. Although MJ lost the voting race to Karl Malone in ‘96-’97, there may actually be a few others with even bigger gripes.
• ESPN’s Harry Lyles Jr. compiled a list of the strangest historical facts for each of the nation’s top 25 college football teams (rankings provided by Mark Schlabach). We’re in the middle of the offseason, folks, and fun content like this helps us all pass the time.

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