Penn State Will Host Washington for a Prime-Time White Out After All

The Nittany Lions' Nov. 9 game against Washington will be streamed on Peacock.

Penn State fans cheer on the Nittany Lions during a Big Ten game against the Ohio State Buckeyes at Beaver Stadium. / Adam Cairns/Columbus Dispatch / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

The good news for Penn State is, the team will host a prime-time White Out after all. The bad news? The game won't be on broadcast or cable television.

Penn State announced late Saturday that its Nov. 9 game against Washington, the designated 2024 Penn State White Out, will kick off at 8 p.m. ET at Beaver Stadium. However, the game will air only on Peacock, NBC's streaming-only service. It marks Penn State's second appearance on Peacock since the new Big Ten media rights deal went into effect in 2023. The Nittany Lions defeated Delaware 63-7 in a non-conference game last season.

This, however, is a much different situation. The White Out is Penn State football's major annual event, an opportunity to position the Nittany Lions nationally from a branding and recruiting perspective. However, two factors likely affected the choice to place the game on Peacock.

First, Penn State enters the game following its first defeat of the season, a 20-13 loss to Ohio State on Saturday at Beaver Stadium. A record home crowd of 111,030 watched the Nittany Lions (7-1) fall to the Buckeyes for the eighth consecutive year.

Second, Penn State already has stage a de facto prime-time White Out this season. The Nittany Lions defeated Illinois 21-7 in an October night game at Beaver Stadium that fans turned into an unofficial White Out. Penn State coach James Franklin famously called for "White Out energy" for the game, which the program could not officially designate as a White Out.

Next week's television schedule also worked against Penn State. NBC already had scheduled the Notre Dame vs. Florida State game for its prime-time window. CBS then announced it will broadast the game between unbeaten Indiana and Michigan State in its 3:30 p.m. ET window next week. That left Peacock as the last option for Penn State.

Penn State announced this past summer that the Nov. 9 game vs. Washington would serve as the White Out, since the athletic department expected the Ohio State game to be a noon kickoff. Athletic Director Patrick Kraft said in late July this wasn't Penn State's first choice for the White Out.

"We don't land on any game [for the White Out]," Kraft said at Big Ten media days. "I think you all know what we would choose if were going to choose a White Out game. This year became a little more difficult because of the three networks and the 'draft' process."

The Nittany Lions will seek to rebound from a loss to Ohio State in which they failed to score on four snaps since the 5-yard line late in the second half. Penn State scored one offensive touchdown against the Buckeyes, who ran out the game with an 11-play, 58-yard final drive that consisted entirely of run plays. Franklin called it a "championship drive."

"We've got to do a great job making sure we come in [Sunday], make the corrections, but then Sunday night, we’ve got to flush it and move on to Washington," Franklin said after the game. "We can't allow one loss to turn into two. The reality of college football is everything is still ahead of us, and we’ve got to do a great job of making the corrections, eliminating the things that were unforced errors that happened today, and then we’ve got to find a way to get a win next week at home, and
everything is still in front of us."

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— Penn State Football (@PennStateFball) November 3, 2024

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