Ky Cat Stats

In what could be considered a major victory for Kentucky football today, the state legislature combined with Governor Beshear, announced their support of the plan to make $110 million dollars worth of renovations to Commonwealth Stadium.

Governor Beshear was joined by bi-partisan leadership, including 15 Democrats and 17 Republicans from both houses.  This kind of support generally means that UK is well on it’s way to getting the necessary bonding power to move forward with the renovations.  Though the move still has to be approved by both houses, this kind of support generally lends itself to show there will be little to no opposition once it moves on to the floor in the Capital.

A lot of support for this lends itself to the hard work that Mitch Barnhart has put in to make sure this happens.  Mitch went out, put a plan together, came to a compromise with not only Eli Capilouto, but the entire Academic side of the University of Kentucky, by promising to help pay for some new Academic Buildings, including a $100 million dollar Science Building that is desperately needed, and a $65 million dollar renovation to the Gatton College of Business and Economics.  There will also be other facilities that will be funded in part by money expected to be made from the renovations once completed.

So what exactly is UK getting in renovations?

The detailed plans have not really been laid out as of yet, and there haven’t been any releases of a 3-d layout of what things will look like when the projects are completed, but his is what we know:

There will be renovations to the Nutter Fieldhouse.
There will be an addition of a recruiting room on the east side of the stadium nearest the Nutter Fieldhouse.
Kentucky plans on adding more Club Seating, up to 2,500 more seats.
There is a plan to add 10-15 luxury suits, including a presidential suite that can seat 50-100.  There is apparently already a waiting list for these suites from donors.
UK will improve media facilities, possibly a new press box.
There will be more renovations to improve spectator experience, though those plans do not have any specifics attached to them at this time.

Regardless, the timing for these announcements could not be better.  UK is in the midst of one of it’s most important recruiting campaigns in years, and specifically this weekend has more 4* recruits than maybe have ever been on campus at one time.  Mark Stoops, who Mitch said today would have a huge role in planning out these renovations, will be able to talk in more detail about the plans to the recruits, and show them the UK locker room to reveal what UK is certainly capable putting together with the money they have at their disposal.  Maybe they won’t be able to pull off something as awesome as the new UK Locker Room Suite, but you can get pretty close with 110 million (especially when you consider it took only 3.1 million to build the new locker room).

This is of special importance because the planned date of completion (sometime in July, 2015), would mean the players would get to enjoy the fully completed upgrades by their Junior years, assuming they don’t Redshirt.  That puts the renovations squarely in play from a recruiting standpoint.

It’s unclear to this point what kind of effect this will have from a recruiting standpoint, but if the fan excitement is any indication, recruits will certainly find it appealing to come and be a part of the beginning of a new era of Kentucky football.

Either way, UK has the best of both sports and academics in mind with this plan, and thus, a United Big Blue Nation.  #BBNunite

Go Big Bue!