Or, to put it another way, if you build it efficiently, you hope they will come.
A conservative count shows at least 17 of the 65 Power Five programs have opened or renovated football-only complexes since 2013. The combined cost: more than $800 million. Add in at least seven other projects that are in the works, and the total hits $1.2 billion…
… Considering coach Dan Mullen’s goal is to develop talent better than anyone else in the country, wasting 10 minutes that other programs are maximizing is a problem. That’s why the Gators toured facilities at Kentucky and Clemson and hope to study the flow of corporate offices like Google to get ideas for their new complex.
“I want guys efficiently moving around the building,” said Mullen, who helped plan the Mississippi State complex that opened in 2013. “I don’t want a line walking out of the team meeting room. I want to efficiently get in and out fast.”
Which means even a detail like where you enter a room is important.
To figure out where to put a single door at a position room in UF’s proposed 130,000-square-foot facility, the architecture firm HOK will find out the minutiae of the Gators’ schedule. Where is that position coach coming from? Where is he going next? If the coach needs to exit the meeting first but can’t get to the door before his players do, then the design team failed.
“It’s just like NASCAR,” said Nate Appleman, HOK’s director of sports, recreation and engagement. “We’re talking about shaving a few seconds, 30 seconds, a minute with each of these little moves. But over the course of a day and over the course of a year, it all adds up.”
And what has it all added up to at Kentucky? For Conrad, it’s an hour a day.
“At least,” Conrad said.
As important as that efficiency is, only part of this facility boom centers on maximizing players’ time.
The bigger part is getting them on campus in the first place.
All of this makes Vanderbilt’s “screw it, we’ll cash those SEC checks and spend any way we like” approach seem almost refreshing.
Get The Picture 
The UGA hoops practice facility has world classes locker rooms. The players can’t use them in the game because they are too far from the court. That not a joke.
So….this is a real thing that Mullen is describing.
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Brought to you by the same people who thought the truncated IPF would work.
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Correct.
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BTW — in fairness to McGarity. The layout of the lockerroom at the Hoops practice annex was decided by Felton, Landers and Damon regimes. Not McGarity. But it’s not like Greg has shown any ability to see something like that before it went wrong. This is the crew that spent $60 million on a glorified banquet hall for recruits. That expenses is what happens when you don’t have a master plan for facilities.
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That’s why I said “people”.
It takes a village to raise a Georgia Way.
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Not to be argumentative, but the fact that we didn’t have showers & a proper place for all our equpiment in our locker room at Sanford is ridiculous. The guys I know that played in the 90’s said it was fun to walk back to B-M after games because alums handed you burgers, beers and lettuce (for the burger!) but really, that’s no way to run a football team past the 1940’s.
What’s more, the new banquet hall will be literally the BEST in the country when you account for size and location (inside the stadium). No other school has a bridge running through the stadium but this odd architectural detail of Sanford meant that we have a large area to construct a 2 story building (or 3?) within our gates.
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^^THIS^^ is vintage “Georgia Way.”
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I get Vanderbilt wants to deemphasize athletics. The fact that Derek Mason has both hands tied behind his back as a result is a shame. Any year they make a bowl game, Mason should be the SEC COTY.
Keep cashin’ those checks, Vandy.
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http://www.seccountry.com/tennessee/neyland-stadium-renovation-cost-340-million-set-begin-summer-2018
Looking at the opposite end of the academic-athletic spectrum, it’s amazing Vanderbilt has a won 4 of the last 6 football games against these guys.
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Have always had a fondness for Vandy over the years, but that was because they seemed to be “doing the best they could” to compete, just coming up short. More recently, past decade or so, they have shifted direction and no longer give a full effort to athletics. How do you abolish an athletic department while greedily running to the mailbox to get the SEC revenue checks? They are virtually in “full milking ” mode and are now just a shameless taker. I cannot support that philosophy, grates on me. Yes, their baseball title a couple of years ago was the first ever, of any sport, but they are an athletic drag on the conference and thumbing their nose at the other programs.
I don’t think the revenue sharing concept was set up to reward a dependent who just happened to find a silver spoon in their mouth. Bad situation for Mason, even worse for all the athletes. I never expect Vandy to be a significant player in the major sports, but they should have some success in the minor sports and not consistently lay an egg in both conference and OOC football match ups.
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Vandy is a baseball powerhouse and Bryce Drew is recruiting like a sumbitch.
Football just costs a lot more.
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Very recent development in baseball, and I would say they are 3rd, or 4th in the SEC behind LSU, SC and, maybe, FU. Not questioning the trend here, but it is only a trend at this point, and only represents one sport. I stand by how pathetic their athletic program is, and how the money they receive is spent.
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They promote this Tatylor-esque motion study to shave minutes, yet they are planning on putting the HC Office on the opposite side of the facility from the assistant coaches. I wonder if he’ll have his own water cooler conversations on his end of the hall.
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I assume they’ll have an in-house courtroom, probation office, and some type of community service facility to funnel the players through as quickly as possible on their way back to the field.
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Think about the fact that the UF law school gets all the hands on experience with criminal law without ever leaving the campus.
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That’s the real efficiency decision. Where do we put Huntley’s office?
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Imagine the attention to detail and expense that would occur if the players were employees!
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