UNT Mean Green

So you're suggesting to build a brand new sparkling IPF and then put a grungy 10+ year old surface in this facility?

Bussey, Guyton, Smiley, Wilson, Jackson at WR are a nice, athletic corps.

The IPF will be separate from track and soccer, which is standard in industry, and should be located on or near one of the existing practice fields.

No, those are severely undersized just to handle administration and football.

People should also (possibly primarily) look at this from Baker's point of view. New AD who did not hire Littrell. 2nd biggest turnaround in college football with a horrific roster situation. Demonstrates faith in and provides resources to the football program. Good move.

Great news! Obviously that's an initial peek into the new facilities Master Plan, where track & soccer will move to the East / South side of Bonnie Brae. The "UNT System Markup" always adds a nice 20%+ cost to these construction projects. Absolute joke...

I've been told "hand in the dirt" or "attached" TE.

Depends on the skill set returning from yet another injury. Interesting project to watch for sure. Wouldn't count on it.

The skill position talent will be drastically improved this season and with the 2016 development and maturation of guys like Nic Smith, Tyler Wilson, Rico Bussey, etc. coupled with influx of better athletes in the recruiting class, we should have a nice collection of players who should be expected to perform at higher levels in year two. Excited to watch the QB race this spring. Also, can't wait to see the unveiling of Nic Smith who has rave reviews at RB as a complimentary back. Wyche should play better. Siggers and Johnson provide some nice athletic depth as freshman. We should get at least the production of 2016 out of this group, and likely more. WR should be fine with Smiley, Bussey, Wilson, and Guyton. That group is much more athletic than what we played with most of 2016. Don't forget about guys like Michael Lawrence and Jason Pirtle. Kelvin Smith being moved to the TE position will be interesting. Darden and White are exciting prospects as freshmen. It'll be fun to watch development of these players this spring and into fall camp.

The view would be improved, certainly. But when you compare the size, quality of finish out, etc. of the athletics building and offices compared to the vast majority of FBS universities, ours is severely lacking. It's more similar to high schools (may be music to your ears, Rick), than our recruiting peers.

Just remember that the old RB's coach was unfamiliar with this offensive system. Things should run much smoother this season and protection should improve.

It's really not impressive compared to the majority of HFC offices in FBS

Obviously there are varying views and opinions on this trip. Again, it was clearly well thought out and it's awesome that a generous donor donated the time and expense of their family's airplane to help facilitate a trip in two days that may have taken a week flying around the country on American Airlines. I'd look at this as more in line with "big time", and in the same connotation, "that if we are going to be like a Boise State, it's time to start acting like it." Looks like a strong step forward by the President and new Athletic Department leadership in my book. I'm sure this due diligence was done to get ideas on the newest indoor practice facilities and athletics operations facilities to help UNT get the "best bang for the buck" for this campaign.

It's called due diligence. The trip destinations appear to have been carefully and strategically planned to see a nice assortment of newly constructed indoor practice facilities at a variety of universities. It is extremely small time thinking on your part to be critical of this type of trip, which on the surface, looks to be the first time we've done "big time" due diligence and research like this. I'm not certain how that's not encouraging and positive? But they are horse arenas and we should be looking at high school facilities... Or the existing practice field(s).

Facility Information on this tour: Liberty University Marshall Miami Ohio and Miami Athletic Performance Center Colorado Oklahoma State Dead on. That location wouldn't make sense. Needs to be as close as possible to Operations Building and ideally adjacent to Practice Fields.

Exactly. If we are going to compete at the Top of the G5, you have to start acting like it. Facilities are extremely important in the success of programs, and as the AD Audit conveyed, our facilities are very far behind. WHEN we finalize the Facilities Master Plan and initiate the campaign for facilities like constructing the Indoor Practice Facility and enhancing the 'Operations' Center, this will demonstrate a true commitment to helping UNT achieve these goals. It is going to take an incredible effort by Athletics Department leadership, existing donors, and faculty to pull this off. More importantly, it will not be able to be done without a new level of financial participation from existing contributors and finding new donors who believe in the project. We cannot approach it with the "same old UNT" mentality, or that is what the results will be. As far as architectural building style on the Indoor Practice Facility, I would expect to see a combination of brick, concrete and metal as that seems to be the norm in the industry. These buildings are very large. The ones visited on this leadership trip were all over 90,000 square feet and 70 something feet tall (according to the links provided earlier in this thread).

I'm not certain how you would deduce that, but that's not to say that may not be the premise. I would say that if you take a minute to look at where they visited, these destinations were very well thought out (and some "nicer" than the car ride destinations you listed): Liberty University Brand new Indoor Practice Facility (possibly still under construction) and Liberty has the best athletics facilities in FCS (better than most G5 FBS) with money to burn Marshall Opened in 2014 with Academics and Training facilities, this looks to be the best (and possibly only) Indoor Practice Facility in Conference USA Miami Ohio and Miami Athletic Performance Center Indoor Practice Facility opened in 2015 and newly opened Athletic Performance Center looks to be best anywhere in G5 Colorado Brand new Indoor Practice Facility and Champions Center easily in Top 3 facilities in PAC12 conference, and frankly a team that we compete with recruits on Oklahoma State New(er) facility in the Big XII (more recent than Baylor or TCU), and likely on the way returning to Denton for the jet Absolutely. It's reasonable to think that Ryan Peck has contacts at Colorado and Wren Baker has contacts at Oklahoma State.

If you take a quick look at the facilities this group toured, these were obviously carefully selected, strategic destinations. And yes, these schools that were visited have newer and nicer indoor practice facilities than what is available 3-4 hours via car. Just do a little google search and you'll see that there was obviously plenty of due diligence and planning involved in this trip for President, AD Leadership, and Head Football Coach. Impressive and can't wait to see what comes of it!

Where in a 3 to 4 hour drive are there comparable facilities to Liberty (best in FCS), Marshall (best in CUSA), Miami (best G5), Colorado (best PAC 12 without flying to Oregon or Seattle), and Oklahoma State?

My apologies. If you click on that image of what is the player lounge it's a full Flickr slideshow. Also there's a YouTube video in my post that shows this new football and athletics operations facility on 2/1/17. Apparently Miami is still moving into this, and their indoor practice facility was completed in 2015. Both look like VERY impressive facilities (G5 or P5 level).

Doubt WB, NS, or SL wants a bubble for an indoor practice facility.

School visits look like Liberty, Marshall, Miami (Ohio), Colorado, Oklahoma State, and Texas... Confirmed (minus Texas) https://mobile.twitter.com/wrenbaker/status/833527586449977344 Miami Ohio looks incredible (far superior to UNT): http://miami-redesign.imodules.com/s/500916/gradchamps/interior.aspx?sid=500916&gid=1&pgid=8287

Good news. Anytime we are able to allocate more financial resources toward the program it's helpful. This could include, but not be limited to: coaching salary pool, support or administrative salary pool, strength staff pool, operational budget increase (equipment, nutrition, training, etc.), etc. It's great seeing this being discussed by the BoR.

He was on the staff this past season as well, not sure if official title was "GA" though.

$40-ish million. That's incredible from Arkansas State!