Penn State’s Beaver Stadium is considered one of the more difficult venues for college football. It holds more than 106,000 spectators, and the noise can be deafening, often disrupting the opposing team.
West Virginia felt it could handle the atmosphere well despite losing 38-15 at PSU in last season’s season opener. However, the Mountaineers have the luxury of staying at home for the rematch against the Nittany Lions, who are ranked No. 8 in the nation and will play Saturday at noon at Mountaineer Field.
As he begins his 11th season at Penn State, Nittany Lions head coach James Franklin admits the atmosphere within his team is a topic of discussion.
“You better have all your I’s and T’s crossed and know what that environment is going to be like and be prepared for it,” Franklin said. “As far as I know, you can’t get a ticket to that game. Much like the conversations our fans and their fans have had, playing West Virginia and Pitt makes sense for a lot of different reasons. That’s positive, but there are also reasons why people schedule lower-level, out-of-conference games.”
Penn State has an overall record of 17-6-1 in Morgantown, but has not played in West Virginia in 32 seasons.
After the regional rivals met for the first time since 1992 at the beginning of last season, they will face off again at the start of the 2024 season. It will probably be the last time for a long time.
“They beat us and now we have the opportunity to play them at home,” West Virginia head coach Neal Brown said. “This will be the last time Penn State and West Virginia will be on the field together for the foreseeable future. We could still play in the playoffs, a bowl game or something, but this is the last time for the foreseeable future.”
Franklin has a 5-0 record in home openers during his tenure with the Nittany Lions, but has a 3-2 record in season openers away from Happy Valley, including a 2-2 record in road games.
However, Franklin has helped lead Penn State to recent victories in the 2021 season openers at Wisconsin and the following year at Purdue.
The two losses occurred in overtime at Temple in 2015 and at Indiana in 2020.
“It’s pretty much proven that home-field advantage actually exists,” Franklin said. “It plays a role in a lot of things that I can never talk about. That’s No. 1 and No. 2 when you talk about the specifics of a home-field advantage, the noise in the stadium, but you can recreate that a little bit. It’s players playing for Penn State for the first time — how are they going to handle it? It’s one thing to do that at home in front of 100,000 people, which is challenging. It’s another thing to do it on the road in front of 70,000 people who kind of hate you. It’s your 250 against their 70,000.
“It’s our first time traveling, and some of these people we’ve never traveled with before. The hotel, the bus, the meals, sleeping in a different bed, all of these things come into play. You just have to make sure you do everything you can, and some of these things you can prepare for, some you can’t.”
For Franklin, there are no taboos when it comes to doing what is necessary to give PSU players the best conditions for success in a hostile environment.
“We have to make sure the freshman doesn’t leave one of our tryouts or tip sheets on the floor in the meeting room, because everyone who works in that hotel probably has connections or is related to someone in West Virginia football. I know that sounds weird or silly – but it happens,” Franklin said. “We have to make sure we’re doing everything we can to prepare our players. That’s even more important in a place that doesn’t have an NFL team. This state is all about West Virginia and Mountaineer football. They’re the (15th) winningest team in college football. They’re a proud place.”
Nevertheless, Franklin expects that problems will arise within his team, but he believes that these will be resolved over the next few weeks.
“There are some things that are going to happen in this game that probably won’t happen in Game 2 or 3,” Franklin said. “This is where I’m losing my hair and having sleepless nights because I’m trying everything possible to avoid these things that you know usually happen in Game 1 and do everything I can to prevent them.”
Under a new rule adopted in April, one offensive and one defensive player from each team is allowed to communicate with a coach until there are 15 seconds left on the game clock or the ball is snapped, whichever comes first. Those communicating with coaches will have a green dot on their helmets.
“We probably do it like most people do — the quarterback and linebacker will wear it,” Franklin said. “That’s how most NFL teams are run and that’s how most colleges will use it. We started doing it early, which was helpful. DVSport worked really well with us. We had them at our last few practice games actually running it for us and it was very similar to what it’s going to be on game day, so that was valuable. Doing it with crowd noise was valuable.
“Deciding how much you continue to signal is still an issue. Are you going to huddle up on offense? If you huddle up, the quarterback can communicate with everybody. If you don’t huddle up, how do you still get that communication between 53 yards from one receiver to another and the same thing on the corner? We’re having a lot of conversations with NFL teams and trying some things ourselves. We incorporate noise for our offense when we’re on the road and then our defense when we’re at home. But it’s been good, and it’s one of those things, the more we do it, the better we get at it.”
West Virginia’s athletic department announced Tuesday that Penn State tickets, as well as season tickets, are officially sold out. As the Mountaineers prepare to play in front of a nationally televised FOX audience, this may be the most highly anticipated season opener since welcoming then-No. 1 Ohio State to Morgantown in 1998, and Brown hopes an enthusiastic crowd can prove beneficial to his team, which is looking to start the season with an upset.
“We have to work on that on defense,” Brown said of communication, which is optional. “I want our fans to be as loud as possible when Penn State has the ball and a little quieter when we have the ball until we score. You have to practice that. It gets to where it’s hard to hear, so you have to practice it, and you have to have a plan B, and if they can’t hear, you go back to plan B.”
