Nobody pulls off the White Out like Penn State.

In what turned out to be the biggest shocker of the series, Beaver Stadium just barely missed out on the top spot by a mere few points. You can imagine the disappointment we feel here at NittanyWhiteOut especially with our objectivity oozing with every post.

We were faced with a choice, either pull a New England Patriot and fudge the truth, or be humbled that we were edged out by a team whose home field advantage has propelled them to 3 national championship appearances in the last 5 years.

So with that said, the second place spot goes to the home of the famed ‘White Outs’, Joe Paterno and the once dominant Penn State Nittany Lions.

ATTENDANCE: 10

On football Saturdays, State College becomes the third largest city in Pennsylvania behind only Philadelphia and Pittsburgh

Until Penn State realizes that Florida International and Temple are not intriguing match ups Lion fans want to see, they will have a hard time packing the second largest stadium to full capacity for these crappy non-conference games. Almost like extra fall practices, games against Buffalo, Temple and Florida International simply serve as expensive tackling dummies for this team.

Fortunately, even when those games aren’t filled to capacity, the 100,000+ fans that still continue to show up for those games far outnumbers those found at packed venues across the nation. For that they get higher marks simply because of the fans that continue to show their unwavering support despite the horrible non-conference schedules Penn State loves to play.

Even when Penn State plays in their opponents home state, Lion fans outnumber them. Notice all the white? The Penn State faithful brought their famed White Out to Miami for the 2005 Orange Bowl against the Florida State Seminoles.

But no fan base travels quite like Nittany Nation does. Give Lion fans a game anywhere and they will migrate there en masse. The last 3 bowl games that selected the Nittany Lions (Orange, Outback, Alamo) all sold out with the Alamo bowl actually setting a new attendance record.

In the 2005 Orange Bowl, we were shocked at the number of Penn State fans down in Dolphin Stadium as the entire stadium was literally white with a chunk of Seminole crimson in one corner of the stadium. Penn State fans outnumbered Florida State fans that barely had to travel far to attend this BCS bowl. The next morning, the Miami Herald declared Miami, “Happy Valley South” as they too were stunned by the number of Lion fans that vastly outnumbered the home state Seminoles.

TRADITION/HISTORY: 10

With just 2 national championships, 2 Big Ten titles, and 1 Heisman winner how is Penn State ranked second in this category just behind Michigan with their 11 national titles, 42 Big Ten championships and 3 Heisman winners?

The answer; January 2nd, 1987. Described by ESPN as “The Night College Football Went to Hell”, the 1987 Fiesta Bowl was one pivotal if not the most important point in collegiate football.

During the years before the BCS, Bowl Alliance and any other moniker the NCAA has come up with since to milk more money from the sport, fate allowed a match up for the ages. The setup almost seemed scripted, Miami ended the 1987 season ranked #1 and Penn State ranked #2. Both were independents which meant everything in the era of unwavering conference tie-ins with the Rose, Cotton, Sugar and Orange bowls. With no conference affiliation by both Penn State and Miami, there was an actual shot at pairing the #1 and #2 team in a de facto championship game for the first time.

With the big four (Rose, Cotton, Sugar and Orange) already tied in with the various conference champions, this provided the Fiesta Bowl, a relatively unknown destination for the post-season the opportunity of a lifetime. This did not escape Don Meyers, the Fiesta Bowl Selection chairman.

Penn State was 3-0 in the Fiesta Bowl, and following a national championship defeat to Oklahoma the year before, they were a sure lock for the game if Miami was willing to play them.

“If we have to play this game in a parking lot in Brooklyn,” Paterno told Meyers, “we’ll do it.”

Getting Miami was much more tricky. They were ranked #1 following a win over defending champions Oklahoma and have been ranked at the top ever since. With the Orange and Citrus bowls well established in the Sunshine State, there was little incentive for the Vinny Testaverde-led team to leave Florida for a little known post season destination in Arizona.

But Meyer’s PR campaign was flawless. He raised money through sponsors and NBC, sent black satin sweat suits to the entire Miami team and even arranged for the wives of Miami coaches to get free treatments at a highbrow desert spa. But his most calculated move came when he began leaking anonymous stories to the press accusing Jimmy Johnson (Miami’s head coach) of being scared to play Joe Paterno’s Nittany Lions on a neutral field. That was the move that reeled Jimmy Johnson in when he announced following Miami’s season ending victory over East Carolina, that his Miami squad would be playing in the Fiesta Bowl against Penn State in prime time.

Joe Paterno\'s team had only eight first downs and was outgained 445-162, but the Nittany Lions still left Tempe with the national title.

In an epic game, Joe Paterno’s Lions, who no one believed had a fighting chance, defeated the unbeatable Miami squad. The game ended with Testaverde’s fifth interception by Giftopoulos to seal the title for Penn State.

To this day, the 1987 Fiesta Bowl game remains the highest rated college football game in history when over 70 million viewers tuned in. It was not the game itself, but the impact of this single game on the sport that has led to the creation of the BCS and the subsequent conference realignments we are faced with today.

FANS: 10

“the Penn State crowds were like San Francisco 49ers’ crowds,” former Nittany Lions All-American and long-time broadcaster Jack Ham said. “The fans would show up and sip their Chardonnay.”

My have Penn State fans evolved in a relatively short time. Once considered the ‘classy’, less raucous fan base much like Michigans, Penn State has redefined themselves. Beaver Stadium is no longer the nice house on the block.

Penn State fans cheer the Nittany Lions\' win against Ohio State in October 2005 at Beaver Stadium. (Post-Gazette photo)

Since the Nebraska game of 2002 when the largest Penn State crowd on hand watched their Nittany Lions demolish the Cornhuskers 40-7, Lion fans have realized the potential of an actual home field advantage.

Much of the credit goes to Guido D’Elia, Penn State’s director of communications and branding for football since 2004. His first act after moving to Happy Valley in 2004 was to get the students involved. Not every college stadium can boast a student section of over 21,000 students.

A small portion of the 21,000 strong student section whose only purpose is to make noise on defense.

D’Elia first tried getting the students to dress alike. The ‘Code Blue’ campaign simply struck out as students just weren’t all that interested in decking out in blue attire for home games. But his second attempt with the ‘White Out’ became an instant success highlighted by the Ohio State game in 2005.

“The students became more of a mob that day,” D’Elia said.

Their enthusiasm was contagious with Penn State’s older crowd. It helped, in a perverse way, that the football program hit a downturn early in this decade for the first time during the Joe Paterno era. “I think our fans started to appreciate the good times more,” D’Elia said. “They also began to see the impact they had on the outcome of the games.”

To top it all off, the introduction of Zombie Nation has the stadium pulsing. The 21,000 student section all decked out in white bounces up and down creating a human wave of excitement rattling the 2nd largest stadium in the nation all game long. Decibel readings conducted at Beaver Stadium has recorded levels up to 122 decibels. Thats equivalent to the noise a plane makes on a runway.

21,000 strong, Penn State\'s student section is the 2nd largest in the nation. Why do teams even bother making audibles at Beaver Stadium?

You have never truly established seen home field support by students until you are on the field with a student section carpeted across one fourth of the stadium starting with the first row and stretching to the upper decks screaming at the top of their lungs. Now imagine that rabid mob all decked out in white as if a spotlight has cued them on when Penn State is on defense. What a picture it made at that Ohio State game in ’05, nothing but white halfway around the mammoth stadium.

Both Penn State and ESPN/ABC have seen the experience that is Penn State football. Night games now regularly show up each season on Penn State’s schedule and Penn State home games are some of the toughest tickets to find.

The first ever all stadium White Out at Beaver Stadium against the Notre Dame Fighting Irish in 2007.

It is no coincidence that Penn State’s student section has been called the ‘best student section in the nation‘ by ESPN and Ohio State alum Kirk Herbstreit. Home football games have also been dubbed the ‘Greatest Show in College Football‘ by Sports Illustrated. Ranked as the #5 toughest venue to play in the nation by Rivals, #5 by ESPN and #4 by EA Games, the accolades will only continue to pile as Penn State has certainly established itself as one of the elite home field environments in the country.

VENUE: 9

Its tough to be second to anyone in the Big Ten. But for years, Penn State and Beaver Stadium has been second in seating capacity and hence attendance to the Big House at Michigan. Fortunately, with renovations currently taking place in Ann Arbor, Penn State will finally sit atop the largest stadium list for the first time making Beaver Stadium the largest stadium for the 2008 season.

2 upper decks were added to the south end zone further enclosing the student section that spans the lower tier below it.

Originally built as a traditional elevated football venue with just one upper deck over the North end zone, Beaver Stadium once boasted clear views of Mount Nittany. But the addition of a second upper deck to the South end zone blocked that once picturesque view, but aided in trapping sound within this mammoth venue. Unlike Michigan Stadium which is mostly submerged under ground level, Beaver Stadium is simply imposing with every square inch of the structure vaulting up straight into the sky almost creating a canyon-like effect from the field. This truly amplifies crowd noise to deafening levels. Only 2 teams have managed to beat the Lions at night since 2005. One was top ranked Ohio State and the other was #4 Michigan which came one game short of playing in the national title game.

“Even though we practiced noise, a couple of those false-start penalties can be attributed to noise,” Weis said. (Penn State-Notre Dame 2007)

“I remember [linebacker] Paul Posluszny standing next to me on the sideline and asking me a question, and I had to read his lips,” defensive coordinator Tom Bradley said. (Penn State-Ohio State 2005)

A giant erector set rising out of Happy Valley.

The biggest rip on Beaver Stadium as a venue is its aesthetics. Commonly referred to as an erector set, Beaver Stadium is a collection of twisted metal and bolts rising out of the ground on the outskirts of campus. The emptiness of the area around the stadium only adds to the imposing nature of this behemoth of a venue.

WIN/LOSS RECORD: 8

The 2003 and 2004 seasons were just horrible blemishes on Penn State’s otherwise picture perfect record. But there are no excuses, the Nittany Lions flat out sucked in the Zack Mills era of 2003 and 2004. But since then, the Lions have beaten 4 ranked teams at home with their only two losses to #1 Ohio St and #4 Michigan. PSU is 19-2 at home in the last 3 seasons. A record no one will be ashamed of.

Of the 3 teams that have played at Beaver Stadium twice in the past 3 seasons only Ohio State has managed to win once. Wisconsin walked in twice as a ranked team, and left both times defeated by the Nittany Lions at the Beav. Purdue suffered a similar fate.

Unfortunately, Beaver Stadium gets slightly lower marks in this category simply because of the 2003 and 2004 seasons dragging them down like a ball and chain.

TOTAL: 47 OUT OF POSSIBLE 55

Let us know how your experience at Beaver Stadium went. Your memories of the venue might differ greatly from our perspective and we would like to know. Do you prefer the new 8pm kickoff times or is it more of an unnecessary nuisance?

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