Football upgrades coming, as Clemson tries to stay ahead in arms race
By: Alex Dodd June 11, 2021

College football has been engaged in an arms race for decades to see which programs can build and maintain the best facilities in the sport.

In 2017, Clemson opened the Allen Reeves Football Complex a $55 million headquarters for football operations. The 142,000 square foot building includes a state-of-the-art weight room, sports medicine center, meeting rooms, offices and even a slide and nap room.

But since then, other schools in the Tigers’ footprint have also ramped up their facilities. For example, in 2019 South Carolina opened a 111,000 square foot football operations facility with a $50 million price tag.

Clemson Athletic Director Dan Radakovich knows the Reeves facility is still one of, if not, the best facility in the country, but he wants to constantly improve rather than maintain.

“You can never maintain. It’s a circumstance that a few years ago we made the investment in the Reeves Football Complex, and it is an incredible home for Clemson football,” Radakovich said on Sports Talk Radio in Columbia on Thursday.  “But there are some things we need to do to keep it out front.”

While Radakovich wants to improve the facility, he is not talking about building a new facility necessarily but keeping the Reeves Complex and other football facilities in front of the Tigers’ competitors both regionally and nationally.

Clemson has already started conversations with donors about facility improvements and hopes to get the ball rolling this summer.

“Over the last 10 days we have had some really great meetings with donors to help move forward with some enhancements to improve, not only the Reeves facility, but some other facilities on campus,” Radakovich said. “I think we will be able to do that, and it will be a real focus of us this summer to go to our board and say, ‘Hey these are some things are going to keep us out front and keep us with a cutting edge facility, instead of just having a really good facility.'”

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