OU, OSU work to reschedule games

Saturday, September 15th 2001, 12:00 am

By: News On 6

(OKLAHOMA CITY) - The athletic directors at Oklahoma and Oklahoma State spent part of their day Friday working to reschedule the football games that were supposed to be played Saturday.

No. 3 Oklahoma was to play host to Tulsa, and Oklahoma State was scheduled to play Northern Arizona on Saturday night. But the Big 12 Conference on Thursday postponed all games involving league teams due to the terrorist attacks on the East Coast.

That has left officials at OU and OSU scrambling to work something out. Both athletic directors said they were optimistic that could happen.

``We're working with them (Tulsa) to see if they have any flexibility in moving another game on their schedule, which is not all that different than what we would do in scheduling a game in future years,'' said Joe Castiglione at Oklahoma.

``It's a little unusual to do it during the middle of the season, but this situation requires unusual measures.''

Oklahoma State athletic director Terry Don Phillips said OSU officials ``believe we're going to make the game up.''

``We're trying to work with Northern Arizona, and they're trying to work with their conference to move a game so they'll come in on one of our open dates,'' Phillips said. ``If we can't work out something satisfactory, we'll be looking at other options with other teams.''

Oklahoma has an open date Sept. 22 before beginning conference play on Sept. 29 against Kansas State. After that, the Sooners' only other open date is Nov. 3.

Tulsa plays host to Fresno State on Sept. 22 and has a game with Louisiana Tech on Nov. 3.

Oklahoma State has open dates Sept. 29 and Nov. 3.

Castiglione said the university will make every effort to reschedule with Tulsa. ``If we reach an impasse, then we'll have to get creative,'' he said.

``I think every option has to remain on the table until we go through an order of progression in trying to work this out, because there isn't an easy answer.''

If there is no way to reschedule Tulsa, the second option would be to try to line up another opponent. The last resort would be not to play a makeup game.

Oklahoma stands to lose about $1.6 million if the game is not made up, although Castiglione said finances were never an issue as discussions were held about whether to play this week. He was uncomfortable talking about the financial part of the equation Friday.

``At some point, it's reality, but that's not at all in our minds as we try to make the right decision,'' he said.

Phillips said Oklahoma State would probably lose about $800,000 if it isn't able to reschedule with Northern Arizona, although he wasn't looking that far yet.

``I feel very good,'' he said. ``Everybody with all the universities have been very understanding. For the most part, the schools want to try to work it out. We're moving as quickly on it as we can because we want to play the game.''