Hawkeyes Want Off-Campus Training To Be The Same

If you're looking for a unique workout story coming from the Iowa football players working off-campus at this time, Chris Doyle has a message.

It's not happening.

Doyle, Iowa's strength and conditioning coach, said during a Wednesday video conference that, even though the Hawkeyes are away from the football facility since the campus is closed, he is trying to keep their workout habits the same.

Yes, he said, the players don't have access to the same kind of equipment or instruction that they would normally get. But the plan, Doyle said, remains as it always has been.

"There isn’t a ‘black swan,'" Doyle said. "It’s our job to stabilize the workouts. So this unique story about how a guy is doing something different … the idea is to not do something different. The idea is to do what we do here. So it’s up to us to reach out and connect with these guys, get them the equipment they need, the setup they need. So that’s been part of the challenge, just piece-mealing facilities together, and opportunities for guys to do what we do here. We’re not looking for new and unique ways. If there were unique ways, or better ways, to do what we do, we’d been doing it. We’re trying to normalize and stabilize the environments they’re in, quite frankly."

The Hawkeyes' last workout was on March 13, which would have been the end of the winter training session. Iowa was going on spring break the following week, but the campus was shut down and classes went online over the concerns of the spread of the COVID-19 coronavirus.

The players, Doyle said, had already been divided into their six teams of 17 players for the "Hawkeye Championship," a competition of strength and conditioning workouts.

The teams meet during a video conference every week, and the competition will go on, even if the players can't be monitored as they would be if they were on campus.

"We don’t have analytics," Doyle said. "We don’t have GPS on guys. That’s not available, and quite frankly, there are NCAA limitations on the amount of contact. We can have contact with them, but we can’t face-to-face coach, we can’t demand that they send videos, we can’t hold them accountable to a Zoom workout, so to speak, where we watch it. That’s not allowed right now by the NCAA.

"So what it comes down to is we have to communicate, connect at a high level. We have to talk to the guys constantly. And that’s really a challenge. Typically, when you’re on campus, at 6 a.m., 30 guys walk in the door and you train them. And then at 8 o’clock, another 30 guys, and 10 o’clock, another 30 guys. So it’s every couple of hours, 30 guys come through the door. They come to you. Now, under the current circumstances, you’re reaching out to guys all day long. You’re just constantly trying to connect with guys that they have what they need, they’re on the right page, they’re doing what they can with what they have. That’s part of the challenge is we don’t have the benefit of the analytics right now."

Not getting able to work personally with the players is something Doyle has had to get used to in the weeks since the campus was shut down. But he knows the program's structure eases some of the concerns.

"We don’t have the benefit of daily, face-to-face, hands-on work with the guys," he said. "And we feel like that’s, quite frankly, advantage Iowa. We feel like we have good kids who work hard, do a good job. We’re missing that time, but we’re trying to make up for it in other ways."