Good article here on why NIU adding a nutrition center would be big. The P5 are way out ahead on this but If NIU wants to get closer to AAC or MWC level this would seem to be one area that needs an upgrade. It would also put NIU toward the top of the MAC as it seems most, if not all, MAC schools have not made an investment here yet. The nutrition center seems to be a big focus for 2018.
"It's not just Top 25 teams that value fueling. Guy like (Wyoming coach) Craig Bohl has his administration building a new football complex with a training table that will feed all Wyoming sports. The first thing Craig had me do when he arrived at Wyoming was put in a fueling station in the weight room."
Wyoming led the Mountain West Conference in nutrition spending at $900,000 last year, three times more than in 2014-15, and has hired two nutritionists.
Houston, of the American Athletic Conference, is spending just over $1 million, which ranks at the top of the Group of Five schools that responded to the AP survey. On the other hand, East Carolina, which plays in the same conference as Houston, spent $118,000 to provide four extra meals a week to athletes but had no training table, no fueling stations and no nutrition staff.
Of the seven Mid-American Conference schools that responded to the survey, none had a dedicated athlete training table and one had a part-time nutritionist. Ohio provided a snack station for the first time last year, allocating $35,000 for what it described as "dry food items and fruit."
https://collegefootball.ap.org/article/f...power-five