A day after unveiling his plan to the Board of Trustees, UCF athletic director Terry Mohajir met with the media to further elaborate on his vision for future facility projects and also talked about how well UCF is positioned for future conference realignment.
Here's a recap of what he had to say:
-While the Thursday BOT reveal centered around the "football campus," it's just a small part of their grander plan which will encompass other sports/facilities. He mentioned that the track around the soccer field was missing from one of the released renderings, but that's because they're considering relocating track & field to its own new complex. One reason for that is the vision of dedicated soccer complex.
"I believe we can be a power (in soccer)," Mohajir said. "We're emerging in that direction already. I believe we have a chance to win multiple national championships in men's and women's soccer."
There are other plans/renderings for the other sports, but they wanted to first focus on the football announcement "for where we are in the national landscape of conference alignment."
-As for how quickly the facilities plan came together, Mohajir said there was a master plan when he arrived but it was a lot different. Having viewed numerous facilities around the country, Mohajir recognized immediately the need to upgrade at UCF.
"That was paramount for where I believe this program is and needs," Mohajir said. "On Feb. 7 when I started, I called some of my old architect people I've worked with over the years and said we need to be quick but not hurried in putting together a facility plan. Did I know that the landscape of college athletics was going to be like it is today when I first got here? Not necessarily, but you always have to be prepared. You have to be prepared for any situation as opposed to hope for the best. Hope is not a strategy."
-As far as a timeline, Mohajir wanted to make clear this was simply a release of concepts and not an approval process to green light construction. He's learning more about the processes for Florida universities about gaining approvals, but in the meantime they've got to fund the projects privately as they can't use state funds.
"We wanted to go ahead and cast the vision of what we wanted to do to get people excited," Mohajir said. "Now the next phase is the funding. Once you start the funding process, then comes the approvals. After that comes the blueprints which can take six to eight months. I have no timeline right now."
-Mohajir said the "Launch Club" inside the stadium would carve into the south end zone upper deck, which doesn't impact student seating (students currently have that lower end zone, plus both levels of the north end zone). They would install loge boxes, another premium product that would be in high demand. Premium seats will also help fund the project.
His first week on the job he spoke with student leadership about increasing student seating. That's the impetus for the added "wings" on the north side that would be a standing room only platform similar to Orlando City.
Between the Launch Club and student wings, stadium capacity would increase by 1,400 to 1,500 seats.
-As Mohajir had previously referenced conference realignment in prior statements, I asked whether that pushed up the timeline to unveil this plan.
"We were already working on that before that," Mohajir said. "We're not trying to compare ourselves to anybody except to be the best we can possibly be. If you can only do what you can do, you'll never be more than you are. And we can do a lot more."
Mohajir then spoke more about UCF's unique layout, which includes game and practice facilities adjacent to housing, and how cool it will be to add the McNamara Recovery River in the middle of everything.
-In light of conference realignment, I asked what message this facility plan sends nationally.
"It sends the message that we're going to continue to emerge and get better," Mohajir said. "We're at 97 percent (sold out) capacity (for season tickets) and we're going to announce we're at 98 percent (later today). We're at 200 Shareholders. We're excited. We're going to be the best we can possibly be and continue to climb... We're now in position based on what we're doing with our staff, the capacity of our stadium, the vision of our program, like Coach (Malzahn) says, it's not a marketing campaign. It's what we believe. We feel it. It's authentic. We are the future of college athletics, especially college football. The eyeballs that we have. We're excited."
-The football campus project is set up into three phases - 1.) Recovery River, 2.) Launch Club and 3.) Wayne Densch retrofit. If funded, it could be completed during the course of a "couple seasons."
-Earlier this month, UCF sought BOT approval to grant stadium naming rights to 3MG Roofing. That request was postponed. No timeline, but "hopefully it will be soon."
"We're still working through the process," Mohajir said. "We're making sure we've got our i's dotted and t's crossed."
-What role did Gus Malzahn have in these plans? Mohajir did consult with him, adding Malzahn has loved everything. Malzahn wants to put those renderings on a sign in front of the current facilities, which is something they'll do soon. Mohajir said he's already talked with Malzahn, as well as defensive coordinator Travis Williams and offensive line coach Herb Hand, about specific needs for the new coaches offices and player areas.
This plan would have the player areas inside Wayne Densch (locker room, weight room) separate from the coaches offices (inside the stadium) so he did consult with Malzahn on that, but added the pros of having offices inside the stadium outweighed those concerns.
-Mohajir mentioned how they wanted to "celebrate" the space heritage of UCF, which is a nod to the Launch Club name. The renderings, while conceptual, also highlighted the space theme with countdown and launch pad graphics. I asked whether that was perhaps a glimpse into future branding on a wider scale, perhaps moving away from what some consider to be a "medieval" Knights theme.
"I think we want to capture both," Mohajir said. "The Knights is such a cool logo and name. I just think we want to celebrate our space heritage, which is why this university was started. It's just such a great connection. People love it. Why not use things people love? We like the Knights. I don't know how much people looked at it as medieval. I never looked at it that way. I just looked at it like you're a Knight. It's the creed of being a Knight. The loyalty, passion and camaraderie of that."
-Having just reached the 200 Shareholder mark, Mohajir talked about the impact these plans will have on donors.
"Huge. People are fired up," he said. "Not only are our key stakeholders fired up, we've got people all over the country fired up. I've got no less than probably 10 media people across the country, national media people, saying, 'This is cool. This is different. This is unique. That's great. Congratulations.' They love it. People are taking notice. As we continue to emerge, it is absolutely refreshing and wonderful to see people in California hit you and say, 'This is fantastic. Love what you guys are doing down there at UCF.' That's what we have to do. That's when you know you can change your program. When you have eyeballs in California watching you here, that's the difference.
"I know I may take a little grief on this, but Alabama is a dynasty right now, not because of their viewership, they only have four million people in the state of Alabama. People in California, Europe and Michigan watch them because of who they are. That's where we need to be. We have the built-in eyeballs. As we continue to grow, continue to emerge, and I think we have the right players involved in this program, there's no doubt in my mind that we can be one of the top 10 brands in college football. No doubt."
-Asked about what he found to be lacking in the current facilities, Mohajir said it's all about continuing to enhance the player areas.
"The one really outstanding thing about Florida is student-athletes really don't talk about the facilities that much," Mohajir said. "They want to know about two things. Do you care about me? And can you help me get to where I want to go? Either academically or athletically. For the most part, that's what has been done. Now it's such an arms race, there's a couple areas that we have where there's a glaring difference compared to who we are recruiting against now. We need to really enhance those areas. I'm not going to get into the exact areas, but we've got some work to do."
-Lastly, I asked Mohajir to comment about this unprecedented time within college athletics, having seen Texas/Oklahoma join the SEC, other leagues talking about an alliance, etc. Does he expect more movement soon or could this process take years to determine what the ultimate fallout will be?
"You just never know," Mohajir said. "I think there's a lot of posturing right now. Going back to the question about how this helps our program, I will say this. I'm going to get a little grief from people. Because of our built-in eyeballs, our region and the market, it's so important that we continue to emerge. Alabama. I talked about them being a dynasty. For 20 years, people weren't watching Alabama before Nick Saban got there. When Nick Saban retires and they go back to 8-4 and 7-5, whatever that is, where are they going to be? You've got to choose and be a part of programs that have built-in eyeballs. We're one of those.
"You saw that stat I put up there about major network televised games. That's a huge stat. That is a huge stat for us. You have to have eyeballs to make money. Well, we're there. We're already there. It doesn't matter whether you are undefeated or you have eight wins, you have the built-in eyeballs. That's what I hope we're all looking at.
"What value do we create for the AAC? Do we have more value than another conference might? We might. I'm too new here to really know what those numbers are. All I know is we can keep doing what we're doing to enhance our brand. We'll do that. I think as we continue to have these really innovative initiatives, we'll keep letting people know. We're going to keep telling our story."
