Mom and Dad will eat this Penn State recruiting video up

In the realm of recruiting videos, big hits, flashy effects and catchy music. Mom and dad just want to know if the coach sitting on their living room couch will send their son back home with a degree in hand four or five years later. Kids love the sizzle, parents want the substance.

With that in mind, Penn State cameras followed around a handful of Nittany Lions football players as they walked across the stage this weekend. Penn State set an athletic department record with 109 graduates, 18 of those being football lettermen - including seven who will return this fall.  They won't find it on their son's iPod, but that's music to Mom and Dad's ears. 

Video: This is how Oregon makes room for their 2014 gear

When you have Nike pumping more money, ideas, and equipment through your doors than any other University in the country, you naturally have quite a bit left over.

To get rid of that stuff, Oregon's equipment guys put everything together and price it to sell. We imagine that they kind of have to in order to make enough room for next season's stuff.

It goes without saying that the Ducks gear (everything from socks, to helmets, to stuff exclusive to coaches and players) being priced to sell is going to draw hundreds and hundreds of people. Many people are even camping out to be among the first to get their hands on some gear.

Why doesn't every school in the country do something like this? Fans and the community would eat it up.

Photo: Spartan Stadium is getting a $20 million makeover

By the kickoff of the 2014 season, Michigan State's Spartan Stadium is going to look drastically different than it did just a few short seasons ago, pending final approval.

With one of the biggest video boards in the country going up before the start of the 2012 season, and approved plans to break ground on a building at the north end of the stadium after this season, Spartan Stadium will go through a much needed updat for 2014.

The new two story building's lower level will house locker rooms for both home and visiting teams and coaches, a locker room for officials, an equipment room and media center, according to the Lansing State Journal. Leading up to this addition media interviews were done in portable trailers and there were no locker rooms for game officials. Needless to say, this will be a big upgrade.

The upper level will have new restrooms and concession areas connected to the already existing concourse of Spartan Stadium, as well as a recruiting room for all sports, where coaches from different sports can host players during games and the football staff can catch up with their recruits after games.

During our Midwest tour a few weeks ago, Michigan State's staff shared their excitement about the new facility with us, especially with regards to the recruiting room. The new concession area will be models for what the University wants to do in the coming years with all concession stands and the recruiting room is going to be an impressive, convenient place for coaches to mingle with recruits and their families after games.

Take a look at what the new facility will look like below.

Mic'd up with Indiana strength coach Mark Hill

 Interesting mic'd up session here with Indiana head strength and conditioning coach Mark Hill.

Coach Hill talks about why he believes in combining different weight room philosophies to fit his style, and his day to day duties as a strength coach beyond his responsibilities in the weight room.

The Scoop on What You Missed This Week

We had a great time at the DFO conference this week. Can't wait to do it again next year.

The Starting Five: Our five (okay, six) best stories of the week.

- Speaking of the DFO conference, here are our dispatches from inside the meetings: How to Plan a Bowl Trip and How to Build a New Facility.

- The College Football Hall of Fame welcomed its newest members on Tuesday. We counted 29 current coaches with a good shot at joining the Hall some day. 

- Note to current Texas Tech players: Kliff Kingsbury knows what you want to do during your down time and he does not approve. 

- Got $11 million laying around? If so, you could be in the market for Nick Saban's vacation home. 

- Mike Leach had a great point about what separates the SEC from the Big 12 and Pac-12, and you can see for yourself the next time you go to Orange Julius. 

The Film Room: Each week we post great videos from all levels of football across the country. Here's a sampling of the best from this week.

- If you're a high school position coach, this is a great way to set expectations among your players. 

- Mic'd up: Texas Tech running backs coach Mike Jinks, N.C. State cornerbacks coach Richard McNutt and Washington State defensive line coach Joe Salave'a. 

- Great 2013 season trailers for Ohio State, North Texas and Dartmouth. 

- Saving the best for last, Stanford linebackers: #PartyInTheBackfield.

News, news, news: We had to change this sub-section due to the events of this week.

- The world could exist as is for another 4,000 years and we'll never see another coach as successful as Larry Kehres. 

- Congratulations to Wayne Hardin and Bill McCartney, the two newest College Football Hall of Fame coaches. 

- The Mountain West will have 22 games on ESPN properties this season. Why that's a much needed step forward for that conference. 

- UCF could be adding black helmets this fall. 

- Arizona released 13 new uniform combinations this week.  

- There's a better than 50 percent chance your state's highest-paid public employee is a college football coach. 

The Minnesota Vikings are leaving the MetroDome and turning to the Gophers for help

When a major sporting event like the Super Bowl or the Olympics comes to town, lots of people rent out their homes to earn some extra cash. Starting next fall, the Minnesota football program will join that group of people.

The Minnesota Vikings are finally leaving the MetroDome, but their new $975 million stadium won't be ready until 2016. Rather than try to squeeze a few more years out of their old barn, the Vikings are going to borrow the Gophers' home for the 2014 and 2015 seasons.

The Vikings will pay to utilize the four-year old TCF Bank Stadium, while also footing the bill for new turf, putting heating coils under that new turf to winderize the playing surface and adding 4,730 temporary seats to the 50,000-seat venue. The Vikings will also contribute $125,000 to nearby neighborhoods and businesses and, on top of all that, pay the Gophers $250,000 per game while splitting concession, advertising and other revenue. All in all, the Vikings will pay Minnesota up to $3 million per season.

If that doesn't sound like a lot in today's age of $25 million media payouts, look at it this way - the Big Ten's entire take from the 2011 bowl season was $47 million, or $3.9 million per team. Or you could look at it another way: Minnesota paid its entire coaching staff $3.3 million in 2012 according to USA Today.

"This partnership benefits the university, its neighbors, the Vikings and all Minnesota football fans," school president Eric Kaler said Thursday.

For schools like Minnesota, life is often hard when you're overshadowed by an NFL team in your own home town. But, with the monetary contributions, the stadium improvements and the added exposure of having their stadium on TV for eight NFL Sundays a year, we think Jerry Kill and co. will be happy to rent their place out of a little while. 

Inside the Annual DFO Meetings: How to Build a New Facility

It takes a village to build a new football facility, as Utah football operations director Jeff Rudy has learned. Major input and help on the Utes' new home came from every wing of the athletic department, the athletic director himself, Kyle Whittingham, coaches, players, university administration, outside construction and graphics firms.

Announced in March of 2011 as a $16 million, 57,640-square foot facility, the project has nearly tripled in size and doubled in cost since then and Rudy has been at the center of the building every step of the way. Slated to open in July, the cleverly-titled Football Center will stand at 149,000 square feet with a cost of nearly $32 million.

As Rudy shared his experience to a room of his peers Monday at the annual DFO conference, he said the first order of business was to identify what your program needs in its new house. For Utah, that meant they had to have, for example, more meeting space, more offices and an expanded Hall of Fame area, a cafe, increased security measures and a more ADA accessible facility.

The next step is picking a location. Some in the athletic department wanted to build an entirely new structure. Athletic director Dr. Chris Hill thought that, since the department had recently expanded the weight room, they should stay where they are. Lo and behold, Utah is leveling its old facility and staying put.

Once those lines were crossed, it was time to pick a contractor and build the thing. For Rudy, that meant meetings, meetings and more meetings. Meetings on top of meetings. Meetings about meetings. There were lots and lots of meetings no matter the time of year, which meant Rudy was essentially working two and a half full-time jobs once fall camp started. This is the time you want to get everything finalized because, as Rudy said, "change orders will be the death of your project."

In those meetings, it was decided the front of the facility would be a glass box with a large video screen that could show highlights and other clips recruits and visitors would find interesting at all hours of the night. "The building had to recruit when no one's around," Rudy said. Ultimately, the glass box would prove to be impossible to heat in the winter and cool in the summer, so they had to give it a roof. Even with a roof, the facility will still be a 24/7 recruiting tool. "We were looking for the 'damn' factor, not the 'wow' factor," said Rudy.

Eventually it became time to build, which meant everyone had to get out of the old building and move into a temporary facility. As the team broke for spring break, Rudy instructed the coaches and other staff members to mark what they wanted moved to the temporary facility by Friday, March 9, and when they came back on Monday after spring break, everything would be in their temporary offices. The coaching staff has worked from those trailers-turned-offices for over a year now. 

The much-anticipated move in date is now just weeks away and the Utes can't wait to settle in to their new home. Thanks to everyone involved in Utah Athletics tireless work over the last two-plus years, they feel that Utah's Football Center will be the best college football has to offer. That is, as Rudy laughed, "until the next one comes out."

Video: BTN's inspirational look at Kirk Ferentz's community contributions

Kirk Ferentz is one of the few faces of continuity in the coaching profession today. With that comes a great responsibility in the community that you coach in. Part of the reason that coach Ferentz is such a well liked person in the state of Iowa (and beyond) is due to his continued involvement in Iowa Cty and the surrounding communities.

The Big Ten Network took a great look at the impact that Kirk Ferentz and his wife Mary have made on the Iowa community, and more specifically, the nearby University of Iowa Children's Hospital. Not only does coach Ferentz make sure that his players take the initiative to help brighten a child's day (which in turn creates a more well rounded players) with frequent visits, but back in 2006 the Ferentz family donated over $400,000 of their own to the hospital, and on top of that proceeds from Iowa's Ladies Football Academy raised over $330,000 in 2012.

That's a lot of coin making it's way back to a very important cause.

The most impressive part about the new hospital might be the fact that some rooms will overlook Kinnick Stadium, an idea that really has coach Ferentz, and kids everywhere struggling with illness, excited about the new building.

Take ten minutes out of your day at some point today and watch this video. Trust us on this one, you'll be glad that you made the time. As the off season progresses, we'll do our best to bring more stories like this to your attention, and make "Feel Good Friday" a weekly occasion.