It’s almost done. Texas Football has announced its new state of the art practice facility will open on Sept. 4. Just in time for the season opener against Texas State the next day.
Several years ago, Texas athletic director Chris Del Conte kicked off construction of the new practice compound. The $80 million dollar Frank & Wofford Denius Indoor Football Facility is located just South of Darrell K Royal-Texas Memorial Stadium, between the University of Texas’s student recreation center and the Jamail Texas Swimming Center.
The facility will include two outdoor practice fields and a 60-foot-high ceiling indoor facility/practice field that will be partially underground, so the roofline is on the same plane as the neighboring Moody Center and indoor basketball/rowing practice facility.
Texas has split time this spring between Frank Denius Fields and Darrell K Royal-Texas Memorial stadium.
“This new building is beautiful,” Sarkisian said last month. “It’s fantastic. It’s spacious. It’s high. You can kick in there. There’s a balcony on one side where you can watch practice from up top. It’s got garage doors that open right up to the grass practice field right outside, so we can actually even at times split the team — offense can go outside, defense can stay inside, and you can work the full field.”
Sarkisian says the football teams new day-to-day home has a lot of advantages UT has never had before.
“There’s a there’s a lot of great things about it,” he said. “The proximity, obviously, to the facility from a time efficiency standpoint. The air conditioning is actually real in there. So when you go in there, training camp and at night, you can do walk throughs, and guys aren’t sweating through their T-shirts and whatnot, so it’s wonderful. And again, I can’t thank everybody enough who has supported that project through CDC to make this come to life.”
A big advantage will be faster recovery time for players after suffering in the brutal heat of early-season games.
“We’re going to play Texas State at 2:30 to start the year. That’s going to take its toll. If you think about from a player’s perspective, they’re in the sun from pre-game warmups to pre game to the game. They’re out there for over five hours in full-blown armor,” Sarkisian said. “The recovery from that isn’t just one day, it takes days, and so, the ability to go in there on a Monday and practice in the indoor, start getting their legs back, get the sun off them to get them ready for the next Saturday when Ohio State comes to town at 6:30 and the pregame warmups and all those things are still going to be in the sun until that sun sets on the west side of DKR and the lights come on. So early in the season, I think we’ve got to take advantage of it as well.”
The Longhorns used to practice in “The Bubble” near the Frank Denius Fields on Red River and Dean Keeton. Back in the 2000s, the bubble was the best solution with little funding and space available. But the area around DKR has had a total transformation since then.
Sarkisian knew the minute he walked into the bubble the UT program needed to upgrade.
“The memory I have is the first time we were outside and we had a transition to go into the bubble because of weather and lightning,” Sarkisian said. “It just didn’t dawn on me how long it would take to get 120 players plus staff and video into the bubble (through that one revolving door). I was tapping my foot, and I was thinking to myself, ‘If Nick Saban were here today, the top of the bubble might have blown off,’ because, as a coach, you want to be efficient and go, go, go. It’s been a lot of great players that have practiced in the bubble, but I’m definitely looking forward to moving into the new indoor (facility) for sure.”
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This article originally appeared on Longhorns Wire: Texas football announces grand opening date of new practice facility
Reporting by Trey Luerssen, Longhorns Wire / Longhorns Wire
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
By Trey Luerssen, Longhorns Wire | USA TODAY Network
