Construction — a six-week process to rip out the track and replace it with turf and asphalt — began around 7 a.m. Wednesday morning.

Days after a few KU football players posted a video of “the last lap around the track” on Instagram, KU coach Charlie Weis took to Vine to share the progress of the construction equipment, which arrived at Memorial Stadium late Tuesday night in time for the early start.

Reaching this point was a perfect storm of sorts for the KU athletic department. Athletic director Sheahon Zenger recently settled on a construction company, which was willing to do the project for cheaper than many expected, and found a donor willing to anonymously pick up the tab.

Total cost of the project is expected to be in the $500,000 range, which will cover laying turf down in place of the track, putting 10 feet of black drainage asphalt between the edge of the turf and the stands and adding a new decorative fence around the south end of Memorial Stadium in place of the existing chain link fence.

When the project is finished, 37 feet of turf and 10 feet of asphalt will stand between the sideline and the stands. In the north end zone, there will be 80 feet of turf from the back of the end zone to the asphalt — 25 feet more than the previous layout.

Zenger and Weis emphasized the project will create a safer and more football-friendly environment for KU’s players.

“One of the best parts is we’ll have time to get this done, so that by the time we’re practicing in August we’ll be able to use the field and have more room to practice in the stadium,” Weis told the Journal-World over the weekend.

Much ado about nothing?

In other KU football news Tuesday, Weis caught some flak for posting to Twitter a picture of a mostly empty section of Arrowhead Stadium and lauding the turnout at the Jayhawks’ one-day satellite summer camp at the Kansas City Chiefs’ home stadium.

Clearly Weis is not foolish enough to think what was in the picture was a huge turnout — and it seems even more clear that those pictured are parents and family members of the high school athletes at the camp — but because NCAA rules do not permit head coaches to send out or post photos of potential recruits, Weis took a snapshot of the venue to show people that they were hosting Tuesday’s camp in Arrowhead Stadium.

Nothing more, nothing less.

Although the wording of the Tweet paired with the picture was unfortunate, it probably would not have been a big deal with anyone other than Weis or KU football. If he had it to do over again, I’m sure the third-year KU coach would’ve chosen a different photo or cropped that one a little differently. But what’s done is done.

Weis has talked plenty about understanding that these sorts of ribbings will continue until KU starts changing the results on the field, so I’m sure he didn’t lose too much sleep over the issue — certainly not as much as he would’ve had he posted a picture of the actual prep athletes in attendance, which, I’m told, was a huge number.