Kirk Ferentz has coached the Iowa football team in 17 bowl games, and plans to do so again in person for No. 18.

The 22nd-year Hawkeye head coach tested positive for COVID-19 on Dec. 17, and will quarantine at his home until Dec. 27. Ferentz, 65, said, aside from a cough, he feels fine and that he will communicate with his team virtually until he can return to the facility.

Iowa will play Missouri in the Music City Bowl in Nashville, Tennessee, on Dec. 30. Ferentz said on a video conference Sunday that he expects to coach the game in person, assuming future tests come back negative.

“I was really kind of surprised when the positive test came back,” Ferentz said. “The cough is annoying, but it’s subsided a little bit… I do realize a lot of people haven’t been so lucky so I consider myself extremely lucky. Hopefully, it’ll stay that way the rest of the season.”

Ferentz’s positive test result was announced publicly on Friday. Ferentz declined to comment whether any other Iowa coaches or players tested positive since then.

The Iowa athletics department announces its COVID-19 testing results every Monday, but does not provide a breakdown by team or specify whether an athlete or staff member tested positive or negative.

“I’m not sitting here predicting we’re not going to have bumps in the road,” Ferentz said. “It’s already been seen, it can happen anywhere, anytime. [We] could get shut down. If it happens to us, it happens to us.

“Knock on wood we can get through 10 days more.”

Opposed to the month or more that teams regularly get to prepare for a bowl game, Iowa’s matchup with Missouri is only 10 days away.

The Hawkeyes will start game-planning for Missouri on Monday before holding practices on Tuesday and Wednesday.

“We’ll be able to handle it,” Ferentz said. “It won’t be that big of a deal. The coaches don’t have a lot of time. We’ve got to get on film and put a plan together and make sure [that’s] in pretty good shape by the end of the week.”

For a usual bowl trip, Iowa would take part in festivities unrelated to the game. This season, with the game taking place amid a pandemic, the Hawkeyes are treating this more like a traditional road game. Iowa will fly to Nashville, Tennessee, on Dec. 29.

The game will take place at Nissan Stadium, the home of the Tennessee Titans of the NFL.

Iowa is 6-2 and won its final six games of the regular season after starting 0-2. The Hawkeyes are an early 14-point favorite over Missouri, a team that went 5-5 and lost its last game to Mississippi State, 51-32.

Unlike every other game Iowa has played this season, its bowl game will feature fans in attendance. The Music City Bowl will permit roughly 14,000 fans into the game.

“It’s going to be great for our players, because they’ll actually play in front of fans,” Ferentz said. “We haven’t done that in almost a year [since the team’s Holiday Bowl win].”

There is no win requirement for reaching a bowl game this season, but only five Big Ten schools were selected to participate in a 2020 bowl. Five schools in the conference opted out of playing in the postseason, and other teams in the Big Ten were not selected to compete.

While teams around the country opted to end their campaign after the regular season because of the pandemic, Ferentz said his team’s decision to move forward with a bowl game came down to a simple reason: the Hawkeyes still want to play.

“We have enjoyed each and every time we have been able to compete,” Ferentz said. “We are going to stay the course. We look forward to being able to get back at it. We are doing what we love doing.”