Ad Disclosure
There’s an adage that the only way to keep up with rivals is to have a crane on campus at all times. In recent years, that’s evolved to building a recruiting room and adding other amenities like a whirlpool waterfall, miniature golf course and video game lounge.
Waterfalls and waterwalls are such a signature piece of this trend in football renovations that they’re part of recent upgrades at Alabama, Texas A&M and Ohio State.
Video of the new & improved lockerrom (via @12thManP) http://t.co/ZcZRotXjuK http://t.co/32T4RBHIoA #12thMan
— Texas A&M Football (@AggieFootball) July 31, 2014
Alabama’s $9 million upgrade included arcade games and 30-foot-long hot tubs.
Kentucky’s facility has juice bars, a barbershop and hi-tech gadgets.
The still relatively new Tennessee facility, which was built in 2012, features a mixed martial arts fighting cage, which is just part of the building’s 22,000-square-foot weight room with an overall cost of $45 million.
Arkansas last summer announced plans for a $160 million stadium renovation and north end zone addition. Among the additions are new suites, loge boxes, club seats and club areas. The east and west concourses will connect, and there will be new concessions, restrooms, game day locker room, training room, and pre- and post-game support rooms.
All of these additions and facelifts are geared toward recruiting and what would impress a 17- or 18-year-old. The Razorbacks tried to capture that in a nearly six-minute video when they showed off their facilities.
Georgia recently announced upgrades worth $63 million at Sanford Stadium to add a recruiting room and move locker rooms to the west side of the stadium, a project expected to be ready for the 2018 season. Those plans were first brought up under Mark Richt, and the much talked about $30.2 million indoor practice facility is nearly completed. In fact, the team used it for several bowl practices last season.
South Carolina joined the building race with plans that Will Muschamp discussed at last year’s SEC Media Days in July. Construction for the $50 million Football Operations Center is expected to take 15 to 18 months.
“I think it’s going to be a game changer for us as far as the student-athletes on our campus presently, but also in the recruiting process,” Muschamp said. “We all like shiny and new. It will be, and we’ve been able to put our hands on it with the architects and get exactly what we want. We’re really excited about that process.”
South Carolina’s 110,000-square-foot facility is expected to open in 2018.
Florida has plans for a standalone football facility with a price tag of $60 million, which is a large piece of a broader $100 million facility plan that spans several sports programs. The projected 135,000-square-foot building will serve as the primary meeting and training headquarters for the UF football team.
A groundbreaking is expected in December, and the facility is scheduled to be finished in the summer of 2019. It will be a three-story building and feature locker rooms, a hydrotherapy room, a players lounge, meeting rooms, training rooms, coaches offices, a lobby and dining hall to serve UF’s roster of 500 student-athletes.
Missouri in December announced changes to its renovation plans, which are scheduled to be completed for the 2019 season. School officials said they would tear down the South bowl of the stadium as part of a two-year project expected to cost $75 million.
The South bowl accounts for up to 10,000 fans, but plans suggest it would be converted to half that number of seats, but also private suites, a field-level club area and a private club section. Those changes could impact the stadium capacity, which is currently at 71,168. Missouri last season had the biggest drop in average attendance across the Power 5 conferences, a 19.8 percent drop from 2015 to 52,236, according to CBSSports.com.
Auburn’s board of trustees last month heard plans for a $28 million makeover at Jordan-Hare Stadium, with the centerpiece being a 44,000-square-foot multi-story facility. Among the changes are space for football and Olympic sports recruiting, and new club and press box areas. The press box would move from the west side of the stadium to the southwest corner. The project also includes a 16,000-square-foot renovation to the home locker room and within the existing footprint of the stadium.
It was reported in September by the Tennessean that Vanderbilt had begun preliminary discussions about a major renovation, or new stadium, for the first time since 1981. The paper reported that the other 13 SEC schools had overhauled their football stadiums in the past 15 years at a combined cost of more than $1.2 billion.
A former newspaper veteran, Keith Farner is a news manager for Saturday Down South.
