BleedGopher
Well-known member
- Joined
- Nov 11, 2008
- Messages
- 63,074
- Reaction score
- 20,752
- Points
- 113
per Scott:
With a meeting agenda on the screen and a video column of committee members within eyesight, Iowa athletic director Gary Barta gave perhaps the most important update of his 14-year tenure Thursday afternoon to the Presidential Committee on Athletics. And he opened with a date marker.
Barta told his colleagues via Zoom that the football season was scheduled to start in 120 days and that the men’s NCAA basketball tournament had been canceled 56 days ago.
“It feels like 56 years sometimes,” Barta said to the campus’ athletics sounding board. “Much has happened since then.”
At the end of perhaps the most tumultuous semester Iowa or any other university has experienced, everything remains in flux for this fall with the COVID-19 pandemic. Can nearly 30,000 students safely attend classes in person? Will athletes return on time to compete in a normal sports season? Will fans be able to watch from the stands? Every morning, Barta and his Big Ten counterparts contemplate those questions.
“If anybody says they have the answer, they’re not telling the truth,” he said. “While none of us believes that a vaccine is in the near future, the mass access to testing and the increased improvement in treatment are both encouraging so that we can get our students on campus. And getting our students on campus means we can have our student-athletes on campus. And then, ultimately, the ability to host events in all sports. And then, specifically, making sure that we’re prepared to have a safe event in Kinnick Stadium.
“I don’t have a hard answer for you. But I know that testing and treatment are improving, and the better that gets in the next 120 days, the better the chances are of having as close to normal as possible season.”
Earlier Thursday, Barta and other Big Ten athletic directors met with the conference’s football coaches and commissioner Kevin Warren to provide updates and discuss scenarios for the fall. Every hypothetical remains open for speculation. When Barta saw Kansas State AD Gene Taylor, the former Iowa deputy athletic director, had mentioned his group had looked at seven options, Barta joked that Big Ten officials have contemplated 77 different alternatives.
The scenarios range from a normal football season to one without fans. A season that starts on time to one that moves completely to the spring. One that opens on Labor Day weekend to one that kicks off in mid-October. The potential for Big Ten games only to a reduced number of conference teams able to compete in football. And on and on and on.
“We’re trying to prepare scenarios,” Barta said, “and it’s really hard because you have to model for everything when you still don’t know where it’s going to land. So you spend a lot of time — and I’m not saying it’s wasted because we need to do it — you spend a lot of time thinking about hypotheticals.”
theathletic.com
Go Gophers!!
With a meeting agenda on the screen and a video column of committee members within eyesight, Iowa athletic director Gary Barta gave perhaps the most important update of his 14-year tenure Thursday afternoon to the Presidential Committee on Athletics. And he opened with a date marker.
Barta told his colleagues via Zoom that the football season was scheduled to start in 120 days and that the men’s NCAA basketball tournament had been canceled 56 days ago.
“It feels like 56 years sometimes,” Barta said to the campus’ athletics sounding board. “Much has happened since then.”
At the end of perhaps the most tumultuous semester Iowa or any other university has experienced, everything remains in flux for this fall with the COVID-19 pandemic. Can nearly 30,000 students safely attend classes in person? Will athletes return on time to compete in a normal sports season? Will fans be able to watch from the stands? Every morning, Barta and his Big Ten counterparts contemplate those questions.
“If anybody says they have the answer, they’re not telling the truth,” he said. “While none of us believes that a vaccine is in the near future, the mass access to testing and the increased improvement in treatment are both encouraging so that we can get our students on campus. And getting our students on campus means we can have our student-athletes on campus. And then, ultimately, the ability to host events in all sports. And then, specifically, making sure that we’re prepared to have a safe event in Kinnick Stadium.
“I don’t have a hard answer for you. But I know that testing and treatment are improving, and the better that gets in the next 120 days, the better the chances are of having as close to normal as possible season.”
Earlier Thursday, Barta and other Big Ten athletic directors met with the conference’s football coaches and commissioner Kevin Warren to provide updates and discuss scenarios for the fall. Every hypothetical remains open for speculation. When Barta saw Kansas State AD Gene Taylor, the former Iowa deputy athletic director, had mentioned his group had looked at seven options, Barta joked that Big Ten officials have contemplated 77 different alternatives.
The scenarios range from a normal football season to one without fans. A season that starts on time to one that moves completely to the spring. One that opens on Labor Day weekend to one that kicks off in mid-October. The potential for Big Ten games only to a reduced number of conference teams able to compete in football. And on and on and on.
“We’re trying to prepare scenarios,” Barta said, “and it’s really hard because you have to model for everything when you still don’t know where it’s going to land. So you spend a lot of time — and I’m not saying it’s wasted because we need to do it — you spend a lot of time thinking about hypotheticals.”
Iowa AD Gary Barta: Big Ten running all sorts of scenarios about football season
There’s still so much unknown that "if anybody says they have the answer, they're not telling the truth," Barta said Thursday afternoon.
theathletic.com
Go Gophers!!