The president of the board that oversees the University of Iowa is stiff-arming a state legislator’s attempt to forbid the Hawkeyes from hosting a Friday night football game. “The University of Iowa is part of the Big Ten. The Big Ten’s going to have Friday night games. The University of Iowa probably needs to do that.”

That’s Board of Regents president Bruce Rastettter, who says there’s an important tradition of having high school football games on Friday nights in Iowa, but this is a unique situation. The Big Ten plans to schedule six Friday night games per season, though at least the 2022 season. State Representative Peter Cownie of West Des Moines has sponsored a bill that would forbid the Panthers, Cyclones AND the Hawkeyes from hosting home games on a Friday night.

Rastetter said during a weekend appearance on Iowa Public Television that each athletic department should make those kind of scheduling decisions. The bill, if it became law, would ban the Iowa-Nebraska game that has been held on the Friday after Thanksgiving for the past several years.

(Radio Iowa)