Athletic director Roger Denny took aim at the SEC office and Ole Miss in expressing his frustration with Oklahoma‘s game against the Rebels being postponed to Sunday, repeatedly calling it an “inexplicable” situation that “unfairly burdens” the Sooners.
In an interview with SoonerScoop on Saturday morning, Denny claimed Ole Miss made a football decision in preferring to push the game to 1 p.m. ET on Sunday and questioned whether school officials made sufficient efforts to get to Norman in time to play Saturday.
The game was originally scheduled for 4:15 p.m. Saturday, and Denny said Oklahoma was “absolutely” open to playing the game on Saturday night if possible. He said doing so would’ve presented some inconveniences but would’ve been “nowhere near as unfair to our fans” as moving the game to Sunday.
“It’s inexplicable,” Denny said. “I can’t wrap my mind around the fact that they can’t find a way to get here. My concern is the level at which they were pushed to find a way to get here.”
Ole Miss was unable to depart Oxford on Friday due to the FAA ground stoppage. The SEC said in a statement published at 1:12 a.m. ET on Saturday that a late-night departure could not be accommodated by Ole Miss’ charter partner and the team’s departure needed to be rescheduled for Saturday afternoon.
Denny said Oklahoma’s administration heard from state highway and police officials “as early as 9 o’clock last night” that Ole Miss was telling them they expected the game to be played Sunday and planned to arrive late Saturday afternoon.
To Denny, that raised questions about Ole Miss’ travel efforts and “how many levers they were trying to pull to actually get here.”
“The fact that we heard that from our highway patrol and not directly from the league office at that time is infuriating to me,” Denny said.
In response to the decision, Denny said in a statement early Saturday morning that SEC commissioner Greg Sankey moved the game to Sunday “over our strong objection” and, after further discussions, informed Oklahoma that “our failure to play on Sunday at the directed time would result in a forfeit.”
“They could have just as easily said, ‘Hey, the game is on at 8 o’clock Saturday night. Ole Miss, show up or you forfeit.'” Denny told SoonerScoop. “They chose not to do that, and that’s the issue that we’re dealing with today.”
Denny said he believes Ole Miss preferred to push the game “to a Sunday morning in the rain” rather than play Saturday night and questioned whether the school would’ve made the same decision about a shortened week if it weren’t playing FCS Wofford next Saturday.
The AD also scolded the conference for the perception that Ole Miss was given the opportunity to make the call.
“The league can’t let people force that issue,” Denny said. “For too long, we’ve allowed institutions to make decisions and create circumstances that are in their individual best interest but unequivocally against the broader interest of college football and our peers in the conference. The leaders of our industry haven’t stepped in, and this is yet another example of that.”
Denny said Oklahoma coach Brent Venables was “furious” about moving the game to Sunday.
Oklahoma is scheduled to host Texas A&M next Saturday at noon ET. Denny said they hope leaders in the conference office “come to their senses” and push back next week’s kickoff time, calling it a competitive disadvantage.
The Sooners have three other home sporting events — a women’s basketball game against Southern, a volleyball match against Vanderbilt and a wrestling meet against Penn State — scheduled for Sunday. Denny said he does not believe the SEC factored that into its analysis of the conflicts and consequences of moving the game to Sunday.
“It feels to me like there are a hell of a lot of circumstances that they didn’t take into account in that balancing test that they do,” he said.
Oklahoma-Ole Miss was the only FBS game postponed to Sunday. Every other Power 4 program whose travel was impacted by the FAA ground stoppage will play Saturday, with six other games being rescheduled to different kickoff times.
Denny is in his first year as Oklahoma’s vice president and director of athletics and was hired in January to take over for longtime AD Joe Castiglione upon his retirement.
