Highly anticipated for its Beaver Stadium plans, the March 13, 2017 rollout of Penn State Athletics’ 20-year Facilities Master Plan was met with some level of confusion.

The first five priority projects included the Center of Excellence, a multi-use indoor practice facility, a new Natatorium, a new indoor tennis facility, and renovations to Jeffrey Field. Much lower down the list, the ailing and aging Beaver Stadium would undergo extensive renovations but the plans were under no real sense of urgency, put on hold for at least five years.

More than two years have passed since that announcement, but the reality of Penn State football’s priorities have crystallized in the time since.

Announced last Thursday, the university’s board of trustees approved architecture firm HOK to lead another $69 million of further renovations to the Lasch Football Building, the outdoor practice fields, and Holuba Hall.

Under the proposal, the weight room will expand and the second-level coaches’ offices and meeting rooms will be upgraded in the Lasch Building. The outdoor practice fields will be leveled to correct an existing downhill slope, then rotated to allow for multiple field orientations. Permanent filming platforms and an outdoor training hill will also be installed. And for Holuba Hall, now more than 30 years old, it will see renovations that add restrooms and additional amenities for spectators, according to the press release.

All of this, of course, coming in the wake of already completed renovations to the entirety of the Lasch Building’s first floor. Among them, the lobby was transformed into a dazzling, photo-ready showcase for the program, a nutrition bar was added to the weight room, the team auditorium and individual position meeting rooms all underwent facelifts, the locker room was completely overhauled, the training room was renovated to include hydrotherapy pools, and most recently, total renovations are being made to the players’ lounge and tutoring facilities.

Exactly as head coach James Franklin had originally planned.

A program still wounded from the fallout of the Jerry Sandusky scandal when he took the position, simply finding a way to endure the series of challenges, and maybe eventually overcome them, had to be Franklin’s priority for the immediate future. Too much change, he understood, could be counterproductive to gathering and growing public support.

So he waited five months before delivering what was, at that point, a jarring state of the union.

Beyond the immediate challenges of the NCAA’s sanctions against the program, Penn State’s future success was in jeopardy for an entirely separate, lesser known reason.

Flatly, Franklin explained at the time that Penn State’s football facilities were badly outdated and out of step with the program’s primary competitors. And without some level of urgency to implementing those much-needed renovations and improvements, the program's relevance could dwindle on the recruiting trail and ultimately on the playing field.

“To be honest with you, it's everything,” Franklin said at a May 2014 Coaches Caravan stop. “It's nothing really structurally, but it's the indoor facility. Our turf needs to be replaced outside and inside; the carpet, the paint, the branding, the furniture, the technology.

“Look around the country to see what people have. We're going to be able to build a very, very successful program that's going to be competitive in this conference, but it's also going to be competitive nationwide.”

Nearly five years later, Franklin’s vision continues to come to fruition,

And in many ways, the actualization of that vision has everything to do with what was first needed before Beaver Stadium’s massive transformation could even be conceptualized.

Though ultimately a necessity, the strength of the product on the field will dictate the terms of the stadium's eventual renovation. And in first making over the locker rooms, training facilities, and practice areas both indoor and out, the Nittany Lions have gradually put themselves back in a position to be competitive at the highest levels for a new generation of top-flight recruits.

“The renovations already completed in the Lasch Building have played a critical role in helping develop our student-athletes and build one of the top football programs in the nation,” said Franklin last week via press release. “To sustain and strengthen our successes, we need to keep investing to give our students and staff all the tools they need for us to win at the very highest level, on and off the field.”

A process more than five years in the making, the truth for Franklin and the football program is that these physical and cosmetic improvements to their facilities are really just the beginning.

Rapid, substantial renovations were necessary for the program to catch up to its competitors. But just as they were necessary to match Penn State’s conference and national counterparts, so too will a more consistent state of renovations be necessary for the future.

“It's funny because we talk about facilities and I think people take it the wrong way,” Franklin told BWI last spring. “If you look at Google and you look at a lot of these companies, they are spending a tremendous amount of resources on creating a great work environment. Why? Because you got the best chance to get the most production out of your players, out of your staff. You create an environment where people want to come to work every single day.

“It's obviously a little bit more challenging to do when you're trying to create a meeting room that a 6-foot-5, 325-pound kid is going to be comfortable in… but all those small details are really what give you a chance to be successful over the long haul.”

To eventually find that elite success on the field though, the Nittany Lions must win the battle of first impressions when giving facility tours to elite high school sophomore and junior football prospects and their families. And those first impressions are critical not just against the likes of Michigan and Ohio State, but also Notre Dame, Georgia, Clemson, and Alabama if those are the program’s true aspirations.

Five years into Franklin’s term with the program, through tireless persistence and countless tangible improvements, Penn State is poised to reach those heights.