James Franklin has a vision for literally everything that touches his program. Part of that vision includes what he thinks a top notch facility should look like.
"Get on the internet and you do some research on what does Oregon have? What does USC have? What does Oklahoma State have? ... Look around the country and see what people have." he said in a recent PennLive article.
That's the rationale behind Franklin's approved request for a $2 million facelift of the current Penn State football facility, housed in the Mildred and Louis Lasch Football Building on campus. Specific areas that will be completely redone include the team meeting room and lobby, with an emphasis on new paint, carpeting, furniture, and of course, new graphics and overall branding of the program.
Franklin also noted during his caravan tour of Pennsylvania that technology needs to be updated within the program and facility.
"Rather than maybe just reading a picture on the wall, then you're able to go up and it's a touch screen and now you can look at bowl games, you can look at quarterbacks, you can look at whatever you want, it's all there and it's there in a way that a kid growing up in this generation is going to gravitate to and be comfortable and be excited. They're used to being to have all that information at the touch of a finger. And we would like to have our building set up that way as well.''
"Let's be honest: With technology, you're never up to date." Franklin added. "The minute you get something, it's already out of date (and) the next thing is coming in.''
$2 mllion can go a long way, so it's going to be fun to see the type of changes Penn State makes to their facility to put them in the same conversation as the Oregon's, USC's and Oklahoma's of the college football world.
This video, shot in 2013, should give you a good idea of what the facility currently looks like.