GAINESVILLE, Fla. -- Florida has made some major upgrades to its football facilities of late, building a $17 million indoor practice facility, renovating the academic center for student-athletes and even upgrading its student dorms.

There's still more on the horizon for the program, too.

"We have a master plan that's being developed for us right now by an architectural firm," athletics director Jeremy Foley said Saturday. "We hope to have that master plan here in February that looks, not only at our football facilities, but every facility we have. What can be done? What kind of price tag are we talking about? We'll sit down and figure out what the priorities are."

Since arriving, Florida coach Jim McElwain has pushed for facility upgrades. The indoor practice facility, which was already slated to be built when he arrived, took on a decidedly different shape, in part, at McElwain's urging.

Rather than a 70-yard indoor field, McElwain wanted a full 120-yard field. He got it after some tinkering with the design plans.

There are other things the first-year head coach wants to see accomplished too. Because of the location of some of Florida's football facilities, many aspects of the program are split up.

The coaches' offices are in one corner of the building, the weight room is in another in the depths of Ben Hill Griffin Stadium. The training rooms and player lounges are in yet separate areas.

Ultimately, McElwain would like to bring all those areas together. He wants a visually appealing space that seems welcoming and inviting, not just for recruits, but for his own players. He has often described the coaches' offices as being in a location that makes it feel to players like they're going to the principal's office when they come to visit coaches. He wants facilities that cultivate a bit more of a family environment.

Changing anything enough to do that may very well require building a stand-alone football facility, and that move may require displacing other sports on campus or moving them around to new locations. There are a lot of logistics involved.

"We have some stuff we want to get done in football," Foley said. "What that is and what that looks like and how much that costs, it's just too early to tell. When we get the master plan and have a chance to discuss it with you, we will.

"There's some things I think that will enhance what we're doing in football, but obviously softball is a priority for us too. That's a back-to-back national championship program. That stadium was built 20-plus years ago and it's a little small now. We've got a lot of things we've got to look at, but football and softball are right up there in our opinion."

The good news is that Florida doesn't plan to stand still any more.

The Gators are buying into the level of investment McElwain is preaching is required to succeed at a high level. That's a testament to Florida's administration, which the head man himself has pushed against at times in a mutually beneficial give-and-take relationship.

And the successful first-year coach is pleased with where things are headed.

"I've got to say this, what a great year it was," McElwain said on The Paul Finebaum Show this week. "More than that, just a year of discovery for our guys in our program and the total organization.

"The commitment to some of the things that have been lagging behind -- everything from facilities, to there were a lot of things that we were able to get corrected -- that's obviously a credit to our administration to see, you know what, we may have been sitting there and not doing much while other people were moving past us on some of the areas. Yet we were able to answer those."

---------------

For more news on Florida sports and recruiting, follow GatorBait247 on Twitter.

Contact Thomas Goldkamp by 247Sports' personal messaging system or on Twitter at @ThomasGoldkamp.