Penn State's Playoff Wild Card: The Nation's 'Best Student Section'

Penn State students didn't buy their allotment of playoff tickets, which James Franklin called a concern. However the Nittanyville president said students are "ready to run through a brick wall."

Penn State Nittany Lions students cheer during the first half of the NCAA football game against the Ohio State Buckeyes at Beaver Stadium. / Adam Cairns/Columbus Dispatch / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

As the No. 6 seed in the College Football Playoff, Penn State earned the right to host a first-round playoff game. Saturday’s date with SMU won’t look the same as a traditional home game at Beaver Stadium, though, perhaps most notably in Penn State’s famous student section. 

One day before the first playoff game in State College, tickets in several areas of the nation’s “best student section,” according to ESPN’s Kirk Herbstreit, remain on sale to the general public. A variety of factors, notably the semester’s end and holiday break, could leave Penn State’s student section, which normally hosts about 21,000 fans, with either empty seats or with non-students filling them. 

As the Daily Collegian, Penn State’s student newspaper, reported this week, students made personal decisions about whether to stay for the game or get home early for the break. It’s something Penn State has acknowledged as the first playoff game at Beaver Stadium approaches.

“One of the things I think is really important is the students,” Penn State coach James Franklin said this week. “Our students make a huge difference for us. And obviously being after finals and things like that makes it a little bit challenging. So that’s a little bit of a concern.”

SMU coach Rhett Lashlee certainly expects a loud environment, saying this week that "there's really nothing you can do to prepare for it." But how many students will attend remains to be seen.

Nittanyville is a student group that organizes pre-game camps outside Beaver Stadium during the week of home games. Because of exams, student travel and cold weather, the group didn’t camp this week. But Nittanyville president Ethan Connor said he still expects more than 200 members to congregate Saturday outside Gate A before the game. 

Though Connor said he expects the student section to resemble that of a nonconference game, he also predicted a “pretty decent-sized crowd” overall. Even as the game follows Penn State’s final exam week and holiday travel, Connor said there’s been a definite buzz in town. 

“We’ve been knocking on the door [of the College Football Playoff] for a long time,” Connor said. “I know people at Nittanyville are ready to run through a brick wall. I know I am. But even the casuals that I talk to are really excited because we’re competing for a national championship.” 

Inventory and pricing for playoff tickets, including those in Penn State’s student section, were determined by the College Football Playoff. Penn State did not sell out its student ticket allotment. A Penn State spokesperson said every student who requested a student-section ticket before the request deadline received one.  

“All Penn State students, including Commonwealth campuses, received an email offering them the opportunity to reserve tickets in the student section at Beaver Stadium,” the spokesperson said. “All student ticket requests received by the deadline were fulfilled and those students received tickets. As noted in the email confirmation, student tickets will be visible in Penn State Student Account Manager on Dec. 19.”

Students received the email on Nov. 21, with the request deadline on Nov. 29. The request window opened late in the regular season, two days before Penn State's penultimate game against Minnesota. The window ended just before the regular-season finale against Maryland. The playoff game’s time and date — or if Penn State would even host a playoff game — weren’t announced until Dec. 8, when the CFP bracket was released. Some confusion ensued, Connor said. 

“I don’t think a lot of students knew that this is what was happening. I don’t think [Penn State] did a good job marketing it,” Connor said. “People were like, ‘Wait, we got emails and stuff?’”

Jared Gendel, Nittanyville’s webmaster, said he thinks a deal-breaker for some students was that student tickets were non-transferrable. As a result, students could not request a ticket and later sell it for a profit, which is a popular practice among some student season-ticket holders. 

“What I believe happened was people that wanted tickets to sell them, that knew they weren’t gonna go to the game from the start, didn’t even request a ticket because they wouldn’t sell it,” Gendel said. 

Ryan FitzMaurice, vice president of Nittanyville, said that while some students were frustrated by the process, he believes “in the grand scheme of things,” tickets went to the people who wanted to go to the game. 

Additionally, as part of the CFP operating procedures, Beaver Stadium will look and sound a bit different Saturday. The CFP will require that an SMU introductory video be played on the scoreboard before the game. Additionally, no sponsorship advertisements are allowed on the video boards or ribbon boards. Thus, Franklin said, it won’t feel exactly like a normal Penn State home game. 

Beaver Stadium's first-ever playoff game is almost here❕

What you'll need to know about the @CFBPlayoff operating procedures ⬇️#WeAre pic.twitter.com/I9bJrqrEoC

— Beaver Stadium (@beaver_stadium) December 19, 2024

“Obviously it’s a home game for us, but the College Football Playoff pretty much runs everything else, so it will not feel like it normally feels to us, playing a home game in Beaver Stadium,” Franklin said. “But overall, in general, obviously we’re glad and fortunate to be home, so we’ll take it. This is the structure that exists, and we’re gonna embrace it moving forward.”

Penn State hosts SMU on Saturday at Beaver Stadium in the College Football Playoff. Kickoff is scheduled for noon ET on TNT.

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Sam Woloson has covered Penn State Athletics for the past three years and is currently the managing editor of The Daily Collegian. His work has also appeared in Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Huntingdon Daily News and Rivals. Follow him on X @sam_woloson