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GOLD AND BLACK ILLUSTRATED VOLUME 27, ISSUE 5 54 on Friday night? Bobinski: "We are. We are still playing Ohio on Friday night. It'll be on one of the FOX networks, not ex- actly sure of which platform, if it'll be FS1 or big FOX, not sure yet. But we'll find that out at the appropriate time. What has happened is when the Big Ten initially entered into the new set of media agreements that'll take place this year, there were six Friday night games that were to be spread across the entire schedule for the conference. That has been backed down to four at this point. ESPN will no longer be doing those Friday night games. FOX will continue to do them. They like the programming, that's part of what they've purchased in their bundle of rights. ESPN has thought otherwise. Northwestern's two games were both ESPN Friday nights. That's how those two went away from its schedule. "Ours remains, and we're fine with that. It'll be unique for our community. It'll be unique for our foot- ball program, but I think it'll be kind of an exciting thing. I'm really looking forward to it." Gold and Black: Where do things stand on the south end zone and the sound system upgrade? Is there a timeline for those elements? Bobinski: "I would have a detailed timeline if I had a pile of dollars sitting on the floor. But all of those projects are very expensive. But they are all important initiatives moving forward for us. We will need a lot of private sup- port and significant dollars to make those things a reality. That doesn't mean they won't or shouldn't happen, be- cause they should happen. We need to improve the expe- rience on Saturdays. "Obviously, the most important improvement that needs to occur is in between the white lines, but these other things need to follow suit. We're talking about those things and we have efforts underway to get those things going. We have active solicitations to donors to help fund those items." Gold and Black: The performance complex is on target to be finished in August. Every time we speak with (senior associate AD-facilities) Steve Simmer- man, he just gushes about how great it looks and how much of a gamer-changer it can be. What are your thoughts? Bobinski: "Everything else is in great shape. We were blessed with really mild weather. Winter was actu- ally pretty good, so there was no delay, no push-back. At spring practice, I've illegally snuck in there a few times and just the scope of the weight room, my God, not only is it just a huge square-footage area, but the volume, because it's got the really high ceiling, it's going to be spectacular. It's going to show big-time." Gold and Black: Where are you at in terms of the fundraising for it? It's, what, about a $65-million project? Bobinski: "The performance center, there were cer- tain dollars raised for that, but the rest of it was actually financed through debt. We've taken on a fairly signifi- cant amount of debt to pay that off over the next ump- ty-ump years, so that will be with us for a while. But it was necessary, it's needed and it's going to be a big impact item. There's no question about that. As we look to other pieces, for instance the lights, we have cash in hand to pay for those. That will happen. Anything else we might need to do and want to do, which there will Stacy Clardie A mild winter helped keep the football performance complex on schedule to open in August. Bobinski said it has plenty of wow factor.