While most college football and basketball players have returned to campus on a voluntary basis during the month of June, the NCAA announced an official return date for student-athletes in July.

The NCAA Division 1 Council voted on Wednesday in support of a six week practice plan for college football teams.

College football programs shutdown in the middle of March with most schools either not fully completing or in the case of Iowa, not even starting spring practices. Earlier this month, Iowa players returned to campus on a voluntary basis for the first since the shutdown due to the coronavirus pandemic. The Hawkeyes return was in two stages with veteran players arriving on June 8th, followed by incoming freshmen coming in on June 15th.

Kirk Ferentz has said in an ideal world, he would like to see an eight week span of time to train and practice before Iowa would play their first game of the 2020 season on September 5th against Northern Iowa. The NCAA says school will get six weeks to prepare for the season with the first two weeks be required workouts and an enhanced training schedule. Those will begin on July 13th.

Following that two week period, student-athletes will be required to participate in up to 20 hours per week of activities. That includes weight training, walk-thoughts, and meetings. The dates for those activities will begin on July 24th and end on August 6th.

Then on August 7th, Iowa will begin their traditional four week fall camp.

On the basketball front, the Hawkeyes returned to campus for voluntary workouts on June 15th. Basketball programs will report back for workouts on July 20th and can last up to eight weeks in total. The activities can be up to eight hours per week.

The Council will be rolling out recommendations for a recruiting calendar for basketball in the coming weeks, but expectations are that they hope to have two live weekends in August and two more in September where two members of a coaching staff can be on the road at recruiting events.