Purdue makes $60 million commitment to football

What was expected to be announced at the end of the year was revealed Wednesday.

Purdue plans to spend $60 million to upgrade its out-of-date football facilities by expanding the Mollenkopf Athletic Center to centralize training and other needs to help the struggling program climb out of the Big Ten's basement.

The project is pending approval by the board of trustees at its December meeting. But since university President Mitch Daniels, board president Michael Berghoff and athletic director Morgan Burke made the announcement, consider it a done deal.

The project, which is called the Purdue Football Performance Complex, is expected to break ground in May 2016 and be completed in August 2017.

The timing of the announcement came during Purdue's bye week. The coaching staff has been on the road recruiting and is probably facing questions about the team's 1-6 record, including a five-game losing streak heading into the Oct. 31 matchup against Nebraska at Ross-Ade Stadium.

In his third season, coach Darrell Hazell is 5-26 overall and 1-18 in Big Ten games.

"It should be helpful in signaling that the board and this administration cares about winning in football," Berghoff said. "We care about academic excellence, we care about operational excellence and there's no reason that can't extend to excellence in football and every sport. That message has got to help Darrell."

The existing training areas offer inadequate space and few effective recruiting tools. Mollenkopf was built in 1989 and has limited instructional and support space, including the weight room, coaches offices, meeting rooms and locker room space.

While Hazell has lost 26 of 31 games and the team hasn't shown enough progress to please the fan base, Daniels said the facilities aren't helping.

"I'm convinced this is a necessary step," said Daniels, whose contract was extended through June 30, 2020 earlier this month. "What has become more and more plain to me, any coach, any staff would be working uphill with the facilities that we've had. Anybody.This the right step, and it's a big step. Let's get this right."

Among the highlights:

• About 110,000 square feet will be added to the north side of the existing facility.

• A three-story complex will combine locker rooms, state-of-the-art workout equipment, coaching offices, film rooms, a player's lounge with study space and team meeting rooms. The facility will sit between Ross-Ade Stadium and the outdoor and indoor practice fields.

"It speaks to the importance of football around Purdue. That's what we need. We're behind in terms of those facilities and we need to catch up," Hazell said following Wednesday's practice.

Populus, a firm specializing in the design of sports facilities which will oversee the project, provided Purdue a comparison about how it stacks up with other Big Ten programs along with Notre Dame. Purdue ranked in the average/OK and below average/bad in 12 of the 18 categories.

Don't look for Purdue to make the jump from last to first in the facility arms race by the time the project is completed. That isn't the goal.

"We didn't start out the conversation by saying we wanted to go from last to first," Berghoff said. "We said we all want the football team to work out all at once in the weight room when they want to and not have to schedule it around other sports. We want to have a facility that allows the football team to meet as a group all in one location in the team meeting room. We want to have a facility that allows the coaches to each have an individual office and not share offices.

"We don't want a facility with a barber shop. We want to be competitive in the middle, and we're fortunate enough that we've got enough other reasons to become a student-athlete at Purdue that we don't have to have the facility carry the load."

The construction of the football performance complex will be prioritized over plans for renovations of Ross-Ade Stadium's South End Zone.

The new complex will be financed using donations and revenue from the Big Ten Network partnership and other media contracts. The Big Ten's new television contract starts during the 2017-18 school year.

"We're very confident we can do this with a combination of revenues we can already see and donor interest," Daniels said.

Former quarterback Drew Brees donated $1 million last summer following a football summit in San Diego.

"You can treat that like the first installment," Daniels said.

Said Berghoff: "We have folks who have strongly indicated interest; (they) haven't written a check yet, it's not deposited but it wouldn't be unlike Drew's commitment for a $1 million, except it's from people who aren't famous like Drew."