FORT COLLINS — Colorado State’s on-campus stadium, in the final stages of construction, is already causing ripple effects within the Rams’ athletic department.

Just one example: In a far-reaching interview this week about the state of the department, CSU athletic director Joe Parker smiled when asked if there were any plans in the works to upgrade the women’s soccer team’s venue, which has been an open field near the Lory Student Center.

“Well, look out there right now,” he said, nodding in the direction of the long-time, fenced-in football practice fields adjacent to Moby Arena and outside his window in the McGraw Athletic Center. “That practice field now is being converted to a soccer facility. With the new practice fields for football, we’ve been able to dedicate that in that fence line for soccer. We took a row of lights out to give us the right dimension for a soccer field. We just spread sand and overseeded. We’re pumping up the maintenance level to get that ready for competition.”

The soccer field will run north and south, along Shields Avenue, Parker said, and the initial seating will be temporary bleachers, with the hope that permanent stands can be constructed down the road. The point is that the football team’s imminent move to the nearby stadium, with practice fields now included in the project, opens up opportunities to use football’s former locker room and office spaces in Moby and McGraw, plus those practice fields.

In addition to talking about the Rams’ flirtation with the Big 12 Conference last year and the continued membership in the Mountain West, Parker indicated that the athletic department essentially is holding its breath and waiting on major decisions about what to do next until the stadium opens and its impact comes into focus. (According to president Tony Frank’s report to the CSU board of governors last week, the stadium project remains on time and on budget, with contingency funds factored in.) CSU’s next moves possibly will include adding a women’s sport — lacrosse is the top candidate — to give the Rams more breathing room as they meet Title IX requirements.

Parker, hired in 2015, noted that CSU, with 10 women’s and six men’s sports programs and an approximate annual budget of $40 million, more than met its budget and projections last fiscal year (July 1-June 30) and is on track to do so again this year. Like most athletic departments in the country, CSU’s operates in the red, in this case at roughly $3 million in recent years. Frank’s public position, including to the board of governors, that the goal should be to minimize or eliminate the deficits. But the CSU president has added that, in line with the consensus position around the country, sports are a university investment for visibility and image purposes.

“We’re strong,” Parker said. “Last year, we beat our plan to the betterment of a million dollars. This year, we’re at plan, maybe a little better than plan … Our budget’s going to take a big jump just by virtue of assuming the obligation of the debt service on that stadium. That’s a big number. But there are incoming revenues, so it balances out. There’ll be a little bit of surplus in the first year and the second year, and then we’ll see how the third year goes. But we should be able to meet that obligation going forward based on the current revenues we’ve identified through all the premium seating and everything else associated with the building.”

On the competitive front, Parker said: “We’re just trying to get across the board where we’re top three in the league close to every year and hopefully in a position every two or three years to earn a title for each one of our programs.”

Considering just CSU’s four “ticketed” sports — football, men’s and women’s basketball and women’s volleyball — the Rams’ collective winning percentage the past three academic years is third in the country, behind Florida State and Western Kentucky.

That’s a convenient breakdown, of course, but is indicative of the Rams’ Mountain West fortunes of late. In men’s basketball, the short-handed Rams finished second in the regular season and second in the tournament, while the women’s team won the regular-season title and lost in the tournament semifinals. The Mountain West was a one-bid league, so neither team made the NCAA field. Under Tom Hilbert, the volleyball program long has dominated the league.

Parker praised the coaches involved in those sports and others. Asked if men’s basketball coach Larry Eustachy has ridden out the storm in the wake of the Fort Collins Coloradoan’s disclosure of an internal, scathing 2014 performance report tied to then-athletic director Jack Graham’s recommendation to fire the coach, Parker responded: “I think so. It’s been a difficult year for him in many, many ways. I think it’s been a year of learning for him, collective learning for all of us.”

Parker added, “I was disappointed when that program review that was three years old hit the media. It didn’t reach that outlet in a legal means and it was just unfortunate because it was a moment in time that had been addressed. I have not see anything that would raise any high level of concern for me with the way Larry has led the program, since my involvement with CSU.

“I have a lot of interaction with all the students, not just in basketball, but across the board, and I tell them all the time in various ways that my door is open if there’s a concern, I want to hear about it. What I saw from men’s basketball this year, I don’t think you accomplish what they did with seven scholarship players plus one, a walk-on from track and field, I don’t think you accomplish what you were able to accomplish without people that care about one another, both the teammates and the staff.”

However, the Rams’ manpower issue was the product of, among other issues, two players becoming academically ineligible at the semester break. Parker labeled that “absolutely” concerning.

“That was a very uncomfortable moment,” he said. “That didn’t feel good to any of us … It created a moment for us to think really long and hard about the way we had supported those students and the way we had encouraged them to keep the appropriate focus on the classroom. I would say absolutely everyone who has been involved in that, from our academic services staff, to the coaching staff, to the students, to the administration, we have learned. And we have learned in a way that has made us stronger. Certainly, anything can happen at any moment, but I don’t think we’re going to be faced again with a situation like that again.”

Parker said that CSU monitors its roster levels to remain in compliance with Title IX, but that adding women’s lacrosse — or any other women’s sports — would eliminate the need to so carefully track that and, if necessary, make adjustments on the fly. But he said that was at least two years away.

“We’ll encourage the women to allocate every opportunity they have available for scholarship dollars or maybe carry walk-ons when ideally they’d rather limit the roster size,” Parker said. “On the men’s side, if there’s not a reason to give a scholarship, we try and keep that money.

“A lot of what we’ve been doing the last couple of years is just making sure the stadium is financially stable and as soon as we have a year of two of data on what level of engagement that’s bringing to the department and how that’s going to translate into revenues, I’m sure we’ll start thinking about (women’s lacrosse).”

Parker ruled out adding a men’s program, including baseball — which was dropped at CSU after the 1992 season.

“Baseball’s not coming back unless you have a million three (for) each year,” he said, smiling.

With the stadium set to play host to its first football game Aug. 26, some area residents continue to express concern about the impact on the neighborhood on game days, and some students have criticized the requirement to move their cars out of campus lots to be used for football parking.

“About 80 percent of residence halls are filled by first-year students, so those are kids not even on campus,” Parker said. “All the marketing material they’ve gotten for residence halls and the contract that they’ll sign for housing states that they are prepared and ready and understand that ‘reparking’ is part of it. When some of the media decide they want to focus on that piece, they don’t understand the level of detail, the level of communication that we’ve gone through.”

The game will be on — and on campus — this fall.