UH to begin construction of indoor football facility Friday

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The University of Houston will begin the construction process Friday on a $20 million indoor practice facility, coach Tom Herman said Tuesday.

The university's Board of Regents approved the $20 million project – an 80,000-square foot facility with a 120-yard synthetic field and football-only sports performance area – in late August. It will be located on the west side of TDECU Stadium.

Herman said the "next biggest step" is to move the football program out of the 20-year-old Athletics-Alumni Center – which it shares with the school's other sports – and into a football operations building adjacent to the new indoor practice facility.

"We have to build a football-only operations building," Herman said on his weekly radio show on KPRC 950 AM. "In today's day and age, you can't share a building with 400 student-athletes and administrators. We have to give our guys their own building, weight room, locker room and dining hall just to keep up with the Joneses. We are far behind in that area.

"I get it, facilities cost money, and money doesn't grow on trees. But if we want to continue this road that we are on, championship seasons, 9-, 10-, 11-win seasons year after year after year, you have to have good players. And in order to recruit good players you've got to have great facilities because guys want to know where they are going to spend the majority of their time and that they are going to be treated in a first-class way."