When Florida Gators linebacker Jon Greenard was deciding where to go to college, he based his decision on where he could develop into the best football player and get a good education.
Five years later, the 22-year-old knows the recruiting game has changed.
Lavish locker rooms, state-of-the-art weight rooms, indoor practice facilities, resort recovery pools and other plush perks are key factors for top athletes weighing scholarship offers.
"The millennials are starting to love more physical things and the vision things as far as facilities, experiences overall," said Greenard, who played for Louisville before transferring to Florida and is expected to be an early NFL draft selection.
"Me, I came into college, I was somewhat worried about experience, but I was more so ... I want to use these four years to get to the place of the best football player I can be. In the classroom, as well.
"But nowadays now you have the guys, social media is a really big thing, so posting videos or having 'likes' and all this stuff is pretty huge. So to have the top 'likes' and have the top facilities you can display to show it off, 'This is what we have.' That's really big to some guys, so that's where this game is starting to go to and lean toward. That's a huge part."
Athletics directors and college football coaches have been arguing for years that in order to win championships, schools must invest in the construction of state-of-the-art facilities.
LSU, which spent $28 million on a 2019 locker-room renovation that boasts sleeping pods for players, and Clemson, which spent $55 million in 2017 on building a football facility that boasts a bowling alley and indoor slide, will be playing for the national championship on Jan. 13.
All seven Football Bowl Subdivision programs in the state of Florida have embraced the facilities arms race, with every program either having recently completed or working toward major upgrades for the football programs. They know there is no appetite for spending university funds on the projects _ and in some cases it is against state law _ so athletic directors have spearheaded extensive fundraising campaigns and stamp top donors' names on new projects in exchange for million-dollar investments.
The flashy Instagram posts from exuberant athletes celebrating their new perks, however, have garnered attention beyond recruits and college football fans.
Elected officials from California to Florida are taking a closer look at spending among NCAA programs, arguing universities need to prioritize supporting students and compensating athletes for use of their likeness before they burn through revenue on an endless wave of construction and renovation projects.
And amid budget cuts elsewhere on college campuses, well-worn arguments about misplaced values are flaring up again.
While the two sides spar, schools show no signs of slowing down their construction boom. Recent history has emphasized success requires hard hats.
