Bryan Bulaga sported a wide grin as he parked his moped behind the Hayden Fry Football Complex on Tuesday, and for good reason.

The junior left tackle was finally cleared to resume full activity on Monday after a thyroid condition kept him on the sidelines for the Hawkeyes’ last three contests, head coach Kirk Ferentz said.

“The good news is now he’s been cleared,” Ferentz said. “We don’t anticipate any further problems, and he won’t be on medication the rest of his life or any of that kind of stuff, which was all a possibility at the front end.”

The 11-year head coach said the illness came mostly as a surprise. There were signs — Ferentz said Bulaga was having trouble keeping his weight up, and the left tackle experienced some shortness of breath on Sept. 8, four days before the Iowa State game — but nothing out of the ordinary.

On Sept. 11, Ferentz released a statement saying that Bulaga had been hospitalized, held overnight, and released earlier that week with an undisclosed illness.

“It’s a very random thing,” the head coach said on Tuesday. “An old guy like me who doesn’t do anything rigorous — I could have the same condition and never know it.”

Ferentz said the team doctors would continue to monitor Bulaga this week, but he expects everything to be fine, especially after the junior was put through a stress test on Monday in which the doctors “basically tried to kill him … and they couldn’t do it.”

On Sept. 22, the head coach said Bulaga had been cleared to lift and do light amounts of running and riding of a stationary bike, and the preseason second-team All-American did nothing full speed in practice.

On Tuesday, Ferentz updated the local media on the exact process it took to get Bulaga back to full strength.

“They started allowing him to do some stuff last week. … We [were] practicing on the defensive field one day, and off in the corner of [the next] field … you can see he’s doing one-on-ones. And I’m like, ‘Oh, crap, it’d be nice to have him over on this field.’

“The good news to me [is that] the wait has been worth it.”

Ferentz wishes he could say the same thing about senior tight end Tony Moeaki, who has been battling an ankle injury. He has missed the Hawkeyes’ last two contests, with junior Allen Reisner filling in.

The head coach said Moeaki, who has missed 16 games in the last three seasons with various injuries, is “improving pretty rapidly,” but he wouldn’t divulge much else.

“He’d probably tell you he wants to play tomorrow, and maybe he should. I don’t know,” Ferentz said. “We’ll figure that as the week goes on.”

National title talk?

All kinds of hype came the Hawkeyes’ way after their 21-10 shocker over Penn State on Sept. 26. Both of ESPN.com’s college football writers predicted Iowa would go to the Rose Bowl, the AP voters vaulted Ferentz’s team up 18 spots to No. 13, and Hawkeye fans began throwing out the possibility of going 12-0.

That would mean a trip to Pasadena — not for the Rose Bowl, but for the BCS national championship game. On Tuesday, Ferentz quickly put a stop to any premature talks.

“Some guy on the [teleconference] asked about politicking for your team and stuff like that,” he said. “I’ve never thought about that in my life. Are you kidding me? And I always think it’s kind of ridiculous when people do do it. … If we ever get in that neighborhood, that’d be great. But I think I’ll defer on that.”