South End Zone Expansion/Stadium Renovation Thread

[Hurryin' Hoosiers]

I wish they would have added more seats.  If we actually get the program turned around, then more seats equals more money and we are one of the smallest stadiums in the big ten.

[RBB89]

29 minutes ago, iuswingman said:

I wish they would have added more seats.  If we actually get the program turned around, then more seats equals more money and we are one of the smallest stadiums in the big ten.

One of the trustees actually asked about this at a board meeting, and the University architect basically said seats could easily be added to the east side, north end, and even south end in the future. Obviously the east side would be easiest. There's plenty of room to grow still. Personally I'm glad they didn't add a bunch of bleachers until we can create more of a demand for tickets. If we get to the point where we are consistently selling out and people are going to be relying more on stub hub, that means we're winning more games, and bringing in more money, and then another expansion wouldn't be that big of a deal. But we aren't there yet.

I'm not really as concerned about having the third smallest stadium in the Big Ten as much as packing the place and making it a tough place to play. Look at Oregon...their stadium is the same size as ours. And remember, we famously made Bo complain to the refs in 87 about how loud our crowd was when we beat Michigan, and that was with an open ended stadium.

[MartintheMopMan]

The new dining hall is a huge recruiting tool (you should see Oregon's), along with new rehab and nutrition facilities, office space, and a health center.

 

Can confirm Oregon's facilities and dining hall are incredible even as they're aging. No mind reading powers yet, so I can't confirm if it affects decisions, but it sure would affect mine.

 

Eat your enemies.

[RBB89]

This is several weeks old and there's been a bit of progress since then, but it's a good look at the scope of the project. The area south of the stadium between the actual structure and the road will be regraded and turned into additional green space. The circle drive around the entire stadium will continue, but they are going to spruce up the south end's with more landscaping and brick pavers like on the north end:

 

Another interesting aspect is that you will no longer be able to see the visiting team's equipment truck sitting in the end zone. The road down to the loading dock and visitor's locker room will be hidden and go underneath a little drawbridge type of thing that will act as the entryway to the stadium:

 

Finally, a quick look at the progress on the Marching Hundred's new home. It will be finished in November:

 

[The Ola Depot]

I don't see a reason to add 200-300 more seats for the other team. Let's face it, you go to a game, it is half empty. Unless Ohio State is in town and their fans buy tickets. Indiana football may already be topped out like basketball. Simply because the potential of Indiana being good is so incredibly low. We are arguably in the best division in FBS football. On par with the SEC West. Ohio State, Michigan, Penn State and Michigan State. Indiana football goal is getting to be 5th. Simply because those 4 are that good. And only MSU gives a slight open window to Indiana, Maryland or Rutgers sneaking into 4th. Adding to football may not actually help. Adding a new section raises the possibility of being good from 10% probability to 10.5%. That is the point. Winning makes you money. Not a fancy addition.


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They are really not as far off as you make it seem. Don't forget the past couple years they have taken the teams you mentioned to the 4th quarter and sometimes even the whole game and still compete competitively. But because of how good the division is like you said, the room for error is very small which, for a casual fan or outsider, makes it appear that there really is no light for the program. But anyone who has really watched this team can see the steady improvement overall and realize that this team is so close to finally turning the corner and being able to make some noise.
As for the seats predicament you brought up, this construction is not only to add seats and also not only for football:

"The Excellence Academy will include two primary levels. The first level will be home to the Dr. Lawrence Rink Center for Sports Medicine and Technology which will include the Irsay Family Wellness Clinic, the Rehabilitation and Treatment Center and the Center for Elite Athlete Development. These facilities will provide: comprehensive physical and mental healthcare for IU student-athletes with physician offices, psychologist and nutritionist offices, exam rooms, diagnostic equipment, and the like; all-inclusive space and equipment to help prevent, diagnose, rehabilitate and treat injuries to student-athletes; and research and technology to apply science to the development of champion student-athletes. Also on the first level will be the Hancock Hiltunen Caito Center for Leadership and Life Skills which will include the Glass Family Student-Athlete Leadership Suite and the Career Counseling Center. These facilities will offer multi-purpose space and offices dedicated to leadership development, life skills training, service learning, and career development for students who participate in intercollegiate athletics at IU."

[Hoosierfan2017]

6 minutes ago, Joe DeLow said:

I don't see a reason to add 200-300 more seats for the other team. Let's face it, you go to a game, it is half empty. Unless Ohio State is in town and their fans buy tickets. Indiana football may already be topped out like basketball. Simply because the potential of Indiana being good is so incredibly low. We are arguably in the best division in FBS football. On par with the SEC West. Ohio State, Michigan, Penn State and Michigan State. Indiana football goal is getting to be 5th. Simply because those 4 are that good. And only MSU gives a slight open window to Indiana, Maryland or Rutgers sneaking into 4th. Adding to football may not actually help. Adding a new section raises the possibility of being good from 10% probability to 10.5%. That is the point. Winning makes you money. Not a fancy addition.


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That's a defeatist attitude. It's already hard enough to compete for quality recruits when Ohio State, Michigan, Notre Dame, etc. are all closeby. If we have crap facilities it'll just be that much harder. 

 People gave their money specifically for this so its not like the university is out anything if the football team can't get over the hump. 

[mdn82]

Gotta start somewhere and as sad as it sounds to you we are trending up. Continual improvement


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[RBB89]

57 minutes ago, Joe DeLow said:

I don't see a reason to add 200-300 more seats for the other team. Let's face it, you go to a game, it is half empty. Unless Ohio State is in town and their fans buy tickets. Indiana football may already be topped out like basketball. Simply because the potential of Indiana being good is so incredibly low. We are arguably in the best division in FBS football. On par with the SEC West. Ohio State, Michigan, Penn State and Michigan State. Indiana football goal is getting to be 5th. Simply because those 4 are that good. And only MSU gives a slight open window to Indiana, Maryland or Rutgers sneaking into 4th. Adding to football may not actually help. Adding a new section raises the possibility of being good from 10% probability to 10.5%. That is the point. Winning makes you money. Not a fancy addition.


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First of all, despite our attendance issues, we already sell out the club seating/suites that we have. There is a demand for that. They will sell these too, because people like to schmooze and drink alcohol.  So actually, yes we will make money off of this because the club seating is expensive and is a revenue producer. Second, facilities are pretty important, I don't know if you just never read any recruiting articles or what, but it appears you just don't care about that because you continue to ignore the fact that seating is a tiny part of this project compared to the actual training facilities. We are not adding another general seating section, the seats we are adding are specifically for varsity club donors. The terrace just replaces Knothole Park.

Third, we literally took Ohio State and Michigan (2OT) to the final play of the game two years ago, and scared the crap out of both of them on the road last year (especially in Ann Arbor, where we were winning at halftime and well into the third-quarter before losing 20-10). This year, we can get to seven wins simply by beating UVA (2-10), FIU, GA Southern, Illinois, Maryland, Rutgers, and Purdue. 

I tried to be nice earlier, but let's face it, it appears that you are completely talking out of your you know what. Our attendance over the past five or so years has been around 44-45,000 per game. Our capacity is 53,000. So no, the stadium is not half empty, even acknowledging that the announced attendance is tickets sold. All I know is thank God you are not our athletic director, because you have absolutely no long-term vision whatsoever. Football revenue is topped out? Really? No one is suggesting that we need to expand the stadium to 80,000 and try to sell another 40,000 seats per game. Simply getting to 50,000 out of 53,000 would increase our revenue a ton. Your logic on this is completely asinine. How do you suggest fixing a struggling program other than through investing in coaching and facilities? And it has already paid off because the program is already back to getting to bowls and making incremental progress. This is the most competitive they've been in years

And for like the third time, the entire thing is being funded through private donations, so who is this hurting? Obviously a lot of people wanted to donate to this and it's their money, so who cares? The university isn't taking funds away from education, and several other sports have gotten or are getting facilities upgrades as well. You suggesting that adding a new seating section does not help anything is completely disingenuous and you know it. No one said it would: the training facilities help attract recruits. You completely ignored 90% of this project and my post to focus on a tiny part of the project. No one said those seats would improve recruiting.

[RBB89]

12 minutes ago, Fkfootball1 said:

The thing is, we don't have to beat those teams every year. Or at least not "all 4." Just pick off 1 or 2 a year and get to 8 or 9 wins.

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Heck like I said in my other post, we can get to seven wins this year simply by beating Virginia, FIU, Georgia Southern, Rutgers, Maryland, Illinois, and Purdue. And if you throw in Michigan State, who we beat this past year, there's eight right there.

[RBB89]

38 minutes ago, The Ola Depot said:

They are really not as far off as you make it seem. Don't forget the past couple years they have taken the teams you mentioned to the 4th quarter and sometimes even the whole game and still compete competitively. But because of how good the division is like you said, the room for error is very small which, for a casual fan or outsider, makes it appear that there really is no light for the program. But anyone who has really watched this team can see the steady improvement overall and realize that this team is so close to finally turning the corner and being able to make some noise.
As for the seats predicament you brought up, this construction is not only to add seats and also not only for football:

"The Excellence Academy will include two primary levels. The first level will be home to the Dr. Lawrence Rink Center for Sports Medicine and Technology which will include the Irsay Family Wellness Clinic, the Rehabilitation and Treatment Center and the Center for Elite Athlete Development. These facilities will provide: comprehensive physical and mental healthcare for IU student-athletes with physician offices, psychologist and nutritionist offices, exam rooms, diagnostic equipment, and the like; all-inclusive space and equipment to help prevent, diagnose, rehabilitate and treat injuries to student-athletes; and research and technology to apply science to the development of champion student-athletes. Also on the first level will be the Hancock Hiltunen Caito Center for Leadership and Life Skills which will include the Glass Family Student-Athlete Leadership Suite and the Career Counseling Center. These facilities will offer multi-purpose space and offices dedicated to leadership development, life skills training, service learning, and career development for students who participate in intercollegiate athletics at IU."

I already tried to point out to him that 90% of this project is for training facilities for every sport. He ignored it.

[Brass Cannon]

What are you talking about we won 6 games last year with a crap offense. 

[Walking Boot of Doom]

Cancel the expansions and renovations. We'll never be anything anyway. No point in trying. Just keep existing as we are and ignore the progress made in the past decade.


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[lucel15]

15 minutes ago, Joe DeLow said:

We were able to push teams because of Wilsons offense. The speed threw people off. Allen will run a much slower offense. And with an unproven run game. I'd be surprised if we won 5-6. You just can't recruit as poorly as Indiana does and win 8 games in CFB. You can't recruit as poorly as Indiana does and then expect to win miracle games. We got close but close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades. Indiana already has a weight room the size of menards. Not much more can be done. The football program just isn't good and historically one of the worst. I don't think we even have a winning record over a single Big Ten team. And it isn't like we're setting the Big Ten on fire the last two years. We're 6-10. Indiana football will always be "don't sleep on them or they'll make it close and give you a scare."


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I wasn't going to say anything because people have already covered it....

 

but it here I go. 

 

You realize allen isn't running the offense. Do you watch anything related to IU athletics or iu football. Because Debord wants to be quicker than Wilson was last year. He wants the ball snapped 10-15 seconds after the ball is placed or set or even quicker. Wilson this past year to on average almost 20 seconds. Oh btw iu has been growing in the receuiting circuit for the past 3-5 years. Also most kids you see in the NFL or excelling are 3* kids which iu gets and develops in their "menard's" weight room. The new buildings and rooms will only help with recruiting which will bring in the 5 and 4 stars you want. It's also statistically proven that 5* and 4* do not make a huge dent on on field performances. I also created a formula and wrote my my senior econometrics paper on this topic and actually presented it to ADs and the NCAA panel just as my friend flew to Houston to present his findings on drunk driving and age. Many of these things can be proven with formulas and equations. And schools are actually focusing in on 3* players or lower and working to develope players (which is what these donors are doing) investing in youth and lastly Athletics in all actuality. So your asinine argument that these buildings will not help are fully opinionated and actually false. Recruits are caring more and more about facilities and what the behind the scenes can offer rather than W-L. Yes that is a variable, but like I said they want facilities and they want to train in an NFL caliber facility which iu has and will continue to have. So please if you don't like what iu is doing and continuing to do with IU football please do not contribute, please do not buy a ticket and do not cheer when they make another bowl this upcoming season, remember this conversation as you are a doubter and a hater on what iu is trying to build and create in Bloomington. 

 

Luce is out

 

breakthrough 2k17!

 

[RBB89]

35 minutes ago, Joe DeLow said:

We were able to push teams because of Wilsons offense. The speed threw people off. Allen will run a much slower offense. And with an unproven run game. I'd be surprised if we won 5-6. You just can't recruit as poorly as Indiana does and win 8 games in CFB. You can't recruit as poorly as Indiana does and then expect to win miracle games. We got close but close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades. Indiana already has a weight room the size of menards. Not much more can be done. The football program just isn't good and historically one of the worst. I don't think we even have a winning record over a single Big Ten team. And it isn't like we're setting the Big Ten on fire the last two years. We're 6-10. Indiana football will always be "don't sleep on them or they'll make it close and give you a scare."


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You seriously have no idea what you're talking about. Not a clue. You're completely making things up. We had the 88th "best" scoring offense in the country last year. We were ranked 120th in red zone offense. The only reason we went to a bowl was because Allen took our defense from the 120s to the 40s, and he's done that now at two separate schools. I'm in not saying Wilson isn't a good offensive mind, but the offense was really bad last year other than putting up some big plays.

And who said anything about running a slower offense? You're completely making that up. DeBord and Allen have talked nonstop all off-season about continuing to run a tempo spread offense and going fast. DeBord's offense at Tennessee during his two years there averaged nearly 500 yards per game and 37 points per game. Tennessee set a school record for points in a season last year. If you watched our spring game, for the most part, we went faster than Wilson's offenses because there was much less staring at the sideline for the play call. I don't really know how much clearer I can make this: we are running a spread tempo offense. No huddle. They got the plays off really, really quickly at the spring game. That's what the coaches what.

We also already have 4 commitments for the class of 2018, which includes either 4 three stars or 1-2 four stars and a couple of three stars, depending on the site you look at. Each one has other Power 5 offers. This is the best start we've in recruiting in years, and Allen has only officially been head coach for a few months. And yet again, for some reason you continue to ignore the fact that the facility upgrades are for the entire athletic department. It helps the football program and makes the stadium look better, but also will be used by every single sport. So other than the things I pointed out, you are spot on. And thanks for hijacking my thread.

[RBB89]

5 minutes ago, Joe DeLow said:

And look what we beat. FIU won 4 games. Ball State won 4 games. Michigan State won 3 games. Maryland won 6 games. Rutgers won 2 games. Purdue won 3 games. We won 6 games and those teams had a combined record of 22-51? There is a reason we won 6.


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Cool. It's progress though, as we are now winning enough games to get to bowls, and competing with the upper echelon teams as well. OSU and UM no longer steamroll us, and we gave a nine win, ranked Utah team a heck of a game. We were leading well into in the fourth quarter.

No one said we want to be stuck on six wins forever, but if you can't see how much the program has progressed, you seriously just don't understand football. Thanks again for hijacking my thread.

[RBB89]

20 minutes ago, lucel15 said:

I wasn't going to say anything because people have already covered it....

 

but it here I go. 

 

You realize allen isn't running the offense. Do you watch anything related to IU athletics or iu football. Because Debord wants to be quicker than Wilson was last year. He wants the ball snapped 10-15 seconds after the ball is placed or set or even quicker. Wilson this past year to on average almost 20 seconds. Oh btw iu has been growing in the receuiting circuit for the past 3-5 years. Also most kids you see in the NFL or excelling are 3* kids which iu gets and develops in their "menard's" weight room. The new buildings and rooms will only help with recruiting which will bring in the 5 and 4 stars you want. It's also statistically proven that 5* and 4* do not make a huge dent on on field performances. I also created a formula and wrote my my senior econometrics paper on this topic and actually presented it to ADs and the NCAA panel just as my friend flew to Houston to present his findings on drunk driving and age. Many of these things can be proven with formulas and equations. And schools are actually focusing in on 3* players or lower and working to develope players (which is what these donors are doing) investing in youth and lastly Athletics in all actuality. So your asinine argument that these buildings will not help are fully opinionated and actually false. Recruits are caring more and more about facilities and what the behind the scenes can offer rather than W-L. Yes that is a variable, but like I said they want facilities and they want to train in an NFL caliber facility which iu has and will continue to have. So please if you don't like what iu is doing and continuing to do with IU football please do not contribute, please do not buy a ticket and do not cheer when they make another bowl this upcoming season, remember this conversation as you are a doubter and a hater on what iu is trying to build and create in Bloomington. 

 

Luce is out

 

breakthrough 2k17!

 

The guy is either a troll, as he continues to ignore the main points that everyone is making, or he seriously just does not understand football. I'm really not sure which is true, because he's completely wrong on basic aspects of our team like our offense, so who knows.

[lucel15]

1 minute ago, RBB89 said:

The guy is either a troll, as he continues to ignore the main points that everyone is making, or he seriously just does not understand football.

I am going to go with troll and or solely basketball fan who doesn't want IU football to succeed, especially after the why don't we give money to basketball, baseball or soccer programs. He must have missed all of he recent upgrades to those programs... Oh and not to mention the football addition is basically for all sports from my understanding lol

[RBB89]

Back on topic...The nutrition aspect and the new dining area is a big thing in recruiting right now. The current Hoosier Room is buried underneath the west stands, so this new one will be a big plus for all the athletes:

"As part of the Excellence Academy, the Tobias Nutrition Center will be home to one of the premier nutrition facilities and dining spaces in all of college athletics.  The nearly 10,000 square foot space will provide a place to fuel the nearly 650 students who participate in IU's 24 varsity sports.  The main dining area will have seating available for 300 people with various table sizes and includes large windows to allow for natural light and magnificent views into Memorial Stadium.  Large televisions will be also scattered throughout the area. 

Lunch and dinner will be served five days a week with a daily breakfast oasis for students.  Service will be in a food station concept with stations including Italian, grill, homestyle, subs and wraps, large salad, fruit and soup bar.  Menu items will be prepared fresh on site by dining staff at each of these stations.  The breakfast oasis will be a morning fueling station for students with a variety of options to start the day.  Two large beverage stations will be installed including a water bottle filling station as new electronic menu boards will display what is available each day."

More info: https://spark.adobe.com/page/ph5K71uFOqyS9/

This family also donated to have a new donor hospitality area made at court level at Assembly Hall.

[Lebowski]

Cool thread.  Thanks for posting this stuff.  

I love the culture change happening and I hope it translates to more victories!

[RBB89]

56 minutes ago, Lebowski said:

Cool thread.  Thanks for posting this stuff.  

I love the culture change happening and I hope it translates to more victories!

Of course. Well said!