COLUMN: That Spontaneous Penn State 'White Out' Was a Banger

Perhaps Penn State could plan one fewer wardrobe game each season and leave the door open for more moments like these.

Penn State students cheer during the fourth quarter against the Illinois Fighting Illini at Beaver Stadium. / Matthew O'Haren-Imagn Images

The challenge here is finding the correct balance between what I’d like to say and not sounding like a grumpy old man. So I'll start by saying, this isn't about the music.

Give me all your Future and all your Kendrick. Toss in some Gunna, some J. Cole, some Youngboy, some Kodak and even some Carti and Drake. If the windows aren’t shaking to the subwoofer just a little bit, you aren’t enjoying the music.

I don’t have an issue with the fireworks, the smoke machines or the dramatic walk from the locker room. I don’t even care if the Penn State football tunnel at Beaver Stadium has lasers. If you’re going to bring in $100 million in annual revenue, the least you can do is make the players feel cool while they’re walking to the field.

None of this bothers me. Maybe if we’re splitting hairs, I could go for a tad more Blue Band, but I’m a band nerd at heart, so that’s just preference. But this past weekend was a reminder of how much fun things can be when they haven’t been scheduled and programmed — a White Out that nobody saw coming.

I’ve had the pleasure, until last week, of attending every “Penn State White Out” that Beaver Stadium has hosted. From Notre Dame in 2007 to any given Ohio State game, there is nothing better than taking your time getting to the press box to absorb the pregame atmosphere. You can be a neutral observer and still fall in love with the tension that fills the air as the teams take the field and the electricity of anticipation mounts. One of my favorite things to do is to walk around Beaver Stadium’s upper concourse before it opens and watch the sea of people just itching to get inside. Maybe a bad choice of words here, but it’s intoxicating.

I am a pregame enthusiast, and to me there's nothing better than the two hours before kickoff, nothing better than the growing tradition of Beaver Stadium filling 60-90 minutes before the game starts on White Out night. It’s almost as though the crowd hopes the game just might start earlier if they get there earlier. It never does, but maybe next year.

What made last week so electric was its spontaniety. Penn State coach James Franklin’s postgame press conferences aren’t universally watched, and yet after the Kent State game on Sept. 21 he still managed to get the word out: wear white.

And that was great. There’s nothing better than fans coming together without really talking to each other. Everyone getting the message, and everyone waiting to see if everyone else got the message, too.

The best thing about the original student section White Outs was how organic they were. There wasn’t a massive marketing apparatus to pull it all together. Everyone just knew.

But now, the next three home games on Penn State's football schedule involve a scheduled, marketed, clothing-related theme. A helmet stripe, a stripe out, and the 2024 Penn State White Out. Each is fun on its own, and considering Penn State isn’t working with 15 different colors in its palette, none asks too much: Wear the white shirt or the blue one. If nothing else, it’s hard to lean on word of mouth to get 110,000 people on the same page. Some logistical pragmatism is involved.

But sometimes it can feel a bit much, like people are trying to make any given TV network or media partner happy. It’s no surprise that Franklin, for all his situational power, had to beat around the bush to make everyone happy. In a normal world, he could just say, “Hey, let’s have the White Out this week.” But that’s not how the world works anymore. Instead, Franklin said, "White Out, dramatic pause, energy."

It feels removed from the fun it used to be. I am undoubtedly spoiled; I have spent over 10 years going to games for free, sitting inside, getting fed and spending timeouts on my laptop. The novelty of any given White Out has never gotten old. But it also isn’t new to me. There are fans who feel that excitement of their first White Out or their first Ohio State game, and planning these events gives people a chance to go home happy.

At the same time, maybe Penn State could plan one fewer wardrobe game each season and leave the door open for moments like these, when things happen organically. That’s when the best moments often occur, when a marketing budget isn’t attached to the energy. You never know what traditions might pop up. Think of the first Mo Bamba moment, and now think of how overplayed that song has become at Beaver Stadium. Think of a song you hear somewhere else, and how quickly it pops up locally like there aren’t 50 other stadiums jumping on the same trend.

There’s a sweet spot in there somewhere, and Penn State occasionally could try to find it.

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Ben Jones has been covering Penn State athletics for 13 years, having been to countless home and road games for Nittany Lion sporting events spanning from the Rose Bowl to the NCAA Tournament. He's also the author of the book Happy Valley Hockey. You can read his work at https://benjonesonpennstate.substack.com and follow him on X (Twitter) at Ben_Jones88