Iowa School President has Football Team Back June 1, so was Gundy that Far Off with Staff Returning May 1?

It wasn't but a about a month ago that Mike Gundy was ripped by some local and most national media for his comments about getting football going again. Makes you wonder what will happen to Iowa President Bruce Harreld?

STILLWATER -- Oklahoma State University head football coach Mike Gundy speaking in a teleconference back on Tuesday, April 7 said his goal at that time was to bring his football staff back to the West End Zone football headquarters for the Cowboys inside Boone Pickens Stadium on May 1 and then the players back as soon as possible following that. Gundy's comments were met with cynicism and disgust by some of the national media including reporters from Sports Illustrated, USA Today, and Yahoo. An apology or statement was followed that evening by the University and then Gundy issued an apology on Saturday of that week despite getting favorable support from some of his player's parents that were asked.

Now, University of Iowa president Bruce Harreld has said that he thinks the Hawkeyes football student-athletes could resume activities after June 1, he told the state board of regents Thursday. The statement and more on the return to normalcy on the Iowa campus is in this story in The Iowa City Gazette.

Gundy's comment was encouraging but non committal on when team activities would resume. 

“We have to have a plan, and the plan right now is for that to start on May 1," Gundy said of bringing in the staff. "It might get backed up two weeks. I don’t know. I can’t make that call. But if it does, we’ll do that with the employees of this company, the ones that come in this building. Then we’ll bring the players in (later). Slowly but surely, we’ll test ‘em all in.”

Gundy has had no comment on anything to do with the return of students on campus or his team. 

Harreld in his virtual meeting with the Iowa Board of Regents for Higher Education specified that the Big Ten Conference's suspension of team activities in all sports and with all team activities through May 4 will be soon be reevaluated and felt could be lifted by June 1.

"We're ever so hopeful that this virus will be behind us at that point, and we'll be able to get back into what we normally do," Harreld told the Board sounding like a fan anxious to see some football. "We've missed spring practice."

Harreld echoed the NCAA's Medical Committee and their announcement this week when he told the Board of Regents that the Hawkeyes football team likely would need six-to-eight weeks of preparation before beginning the 2020 season. He did not say anything about the season beginning on time. In fact he deferred to a delay possibly from the coronavirus.

“I’m sure our coaches would love a lot more time so that they can make them winners,” he said. “But the key issue here is we can say we need six to eight weeks.”

Harreld was asked during the virtual meeting about playing games with fans inside Kinnick Stadium and he was non committal.

“If we got to the worst of the worst, would we let the players play with no fans? I don’t know,” Harreld said. “Because if we’re at that stage with this virus, we’d have to do a lot of testing of the individual players.

“And I’m not going to go ‘yes or no’ on that," he continued. "I’m going to go with the experts. But right now, June 1 is the date we're going to get back to practice and here we go," Harreld ended his answer to regent David Barker.

Iowa State President Wendy Wintersteen has had no comment on when the Iowa State campus might open or it's football team return to workouts, even off-season strength workouts. 

However, both Iowa and Iowa State had been expected to resume classes on campus in the fall.