CHICAGO — Following Chris Ash’s introductory press conference as Rutgers’ football coach on Dec. 7, 2015, Athletics Director Pat Hobbs convened with a small group of school officials to tour the football team’s facilities.

Hobbs said he hadn’t yet viewed the state of the team’s facilities prior to accepting the AD job the week before.

“That was the first room that Chris and I walked in together after the press conference,’’ Hobbs said, pointing to the football team’s locker room, in an interview earlier this week. “Many people heard me say this but I said, ‘This can’t possibly be.’ ‘’

So Hobbs made it his mission to do something about upgrading Rutgers’ athletics facilities. Even though university President Robert Barchi had unveiled a master plan that called for a multi-phase upgrade of the athletics facilities, Hobbs knew he had to raise the money to pay for the projects at a school that hadn’t built a new facility for its athletics program in nearly two decades.

“What I remember is going home after that first facilities tour and really being in a state of shock,’’ Hobbs said. “Frankly I was a little nervous thinking, ‘This is a big project.’ On one hand it was clear what we had to do, but on the other it was daunting. There was a feasibility study out there before we got here that said the most we could probably raise was $25 million. We knew that was not going to pay for all the things we needed to do. So we just kept pushing.’’

While he and his team of fundraisers completed their $100 million Rutgers B1G Build campaign, Hobbs oversaw projects that included a $1.65 million upgrade of the strength-and-conditioning room in the Hale Center (privately financed by Ron and Joanna Garutti), a $2 million upgrade of the strength-and-conditioning room in the Rutgers Athletic Center (privately financed by Bob and Harriet Druskin) and an $8.5 million upgrade of the football team’s practice fields (privately financed by Jeff and Amy Towers and a handful of other donors).

All three projects were necessary, Hobbs said, in order to get Rutgers on par with its Big Ten peers. His next three projects, however, were designed to bring the Scarlet Knights to another level.

Rutgers is weeks away from unveiling its long-awaited indoor practice facility that will accommodate the men’s and women’s basketball programs, the gymnastics team and the wrestling team, and will include shared sports medicine, strength and conditioning and nutrition facilities, plus a public area holding the the Rutgers athletics hall of fame and a fan store. The 307,000-square-foot RWJ Barnabas Health Athletic Performance Center, which includes a 535-space parking deck, comes at a cost of $115 million and was kickstarted thanks to an $18 million from RWJ Barnabas Health in November 2016.

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Hobbs said the men’s basketball team will be the first Rutgers program to move into the 307,000-square-foot facility located next to the RAC on the Livingston Campus in Piscataway prior to its Aug. 5-16 Spain trip.

“I drive by there every day and you can see they’re wrapping it up,’’ said Hobbs, who plans on holding a formal grand-opening ceremony on Sept. 12. “The sidewalks are all done, and (men’s) basketball will be in there soon and while they’re over in Spain the rest of the teams will move in. We appreciate RWJ Barnabas Health really stepping up in a way to make that building a reality. As of right now there’s nothing I look at in the building where I say I wish we would’ve done this differently. It’s pretty impressive.’’

In April, Hobbs and other Rutgers officials presided over a groundbreaking ceremony for a facility set on the Busch Campus (tucked in between High Point Solutions Stadium and Yurcak Field) that will consolidate all academic services for Rutgers’ athletes into a single building and accommodate the men’s and women’s soccer and lacrosse programs, as well as feature training and equipment spaces for each team, new lounges and meeting rooms, coaching offices, and locker rooms. The Gary and Barbara Rodkin Academic Success Center was kickstarted with a $15 million gift from the Rodkin family.

“Folks will arrive on our first football game day and they will see steel in the air,’’ Hobbs said. “What I love about that is I remember they left in the offseason two years ago and when they came back the Marco Battaglia practice fields were done and a lot of people stopped me in tailgates and said, ‘How’d you get that done so quick?’ People are going to say that again. They’re going to come for the first game against UMass, they’re going to see steel, and they’re going to say it’s happening again. Our timeline is open that in December of 2020. We’re excited about it and love the design. The other thing that excited you about it is now we can walk through the RWJ Barnabas Health Athletic Performance Center and so you know the scale, you know the size of the spaces, and it will be impressive.’’

The Rutgers football team reports back for training camp July 31. Hobbs said the team’s locker room — a $4 million renovation paid for by Greg and Anna Brown – will be ready by then.

“It looks great. It’s eye-popping. It’s off the charts,’’ Hobbs said. “I know the effect it will have on the psyche of our student athletes, the effect it will have on our recruits, the effect it will have on our high school coaches here in New Jersey who used to wonder if there was a commitment here to be successful. It’s a very visible but functional symbol of our intention to compete at the Big Ten level.’’

So what’s next?

In a wide ranging interview earlier this week, Hobbs said his team will work on planning for the second phase of Rutgers’ athletics facility plan.

“There are things we know we need to do; things we will do,’’ Hobbs said. “We’re upgrading the turf on both the softball and baseball fields and improving the fencing. We just had a meeting with Rutgers facilities folks on Phase 2 of master planning. In a sense we’ve now completed almost everything that was in Phase 1. We have to do something around golf. They don’t have any indoor facility. It doesn’t have to be anything huge.

“We’ll look at a multi-sport field house and we have to do something to enhance our venues. How do we expand the premium seating in our stadium? Can we do things in the RAC that are not super expensive but can improve fan experience? We met with facilities folks today to begin that process. We’ll engage some outside consultants to help us with that, and then we’ll prioritize out of that.’’

Pressed on the building of a field house to replace the Bubble, Hobbs said it’s a facility he wants to serve as the centerpiece of the second phase of Rutgers’ athletics facilities plan.

“I don’t know (the cost on field house) but why it might not be as expensive as some folks think is because we already have a locker room here, the weight room and the football offices all here in the Hale Center,’’ Hobbs said. “So you need something that’s more of a large space with a turf field in it. Iowa built a beautiful facility which included new locker rooms, new weight room, new coaching offices. We don’t need that. We’ll do some continued improvements here in the Hale Center, but the field house is a big priority. We joke that the Bubble was a temporary facility built in 1986. We need a field house. None of this is set in stone, but my preference would be we do it where the Bubble is.’’

Another project that could be in Phase 2 is an upgrade to the baseball and softball fields that would include stadium-seating and concessions that would incorporate wine-and-beer sales.

“All of that planning will probably take place over the next year,’’ Hobbs said. “Out of that we can start having conversations with people who can make that a reality. Then we would anticipate at some point the university will announce its next (fundraising) campaign. Facilities will be a big part of that, just as scholarships and operating support for our teams will be part of that as well. More than anything, I’m excited for our kids. You want to see their faces as they walk through the facilities for the first time, or the first time they walk through the locker room, because they’ve done without. So 32 months in I’m thinking about the next projects and how do we keep moving forward to do the things we need to do. Now we need to have confidence in is these projects creating benefits both in recruiting and in on-field performance that the folks rooting for Rutgers say, ‘Well, how do we help get it to the next level?’ Whether someone is committing $5,000 or $10,000 or millions of dollars, all of this is having an effect on changing what we’re going to do at Rutgers.’’

Thirty-two months after standing with his newly hired coach in the football locker room, Hobbs can stand in the top row of the upper deck in HighPoint.com Stadium and see a new football practice complex, a soon-to-be-built academic center and a multi-purpose training and practice facility. He can even see a fencing around the entrance of the football stadium, where a Victory statue is set to be set in time for the Aug. 30 opener.

“We couldn’t be more appreciative of the Garutti family for that,’’ Hobbs said. “ ‘Victory’ is going to be a very visible symbol for our first game-day. And really I want to express my appreciation to the thousands of folks who responded during the Big Ten campaign and continue to respond knowing that our student athletes need these facilities, our coaches need these facilities and if we continue to have that kind of support there’s nothing but bright days ahead for the Scarlet Knights.’’

Keith Sargeant may be reached at ksargeant@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @KSargeantNJ. Find NJ.com Rutgers Football on Facebook.