Penn State Sports Magazine
Issue link: https://comanpub.uberflip.com/i/1541990
1 2 J A N U A R Y 2 0 2 6 W W W . B L U E W H I T E O N L I N E . C O M T he Penn State football team's work is done at Beaver Stadium until next fall. On Nov. 22, the Nittany Lions won their final home game of the 2025 season, dominating Nebraska, 37-10, in front of a crowd that was listed at 105,038. The actual attendance ap- peared to be smaller, but the fans cre- ated a boisterous atmosphere on Se- nior Night, and the 34 players who were honored before the game appreciated the support. "It was a roller coaster trying to fight back the tears," defensive tackle Zane Durant said after playing his 29th and last home game as a Nittany Lion. "See- ing my mom and my teammates for the last time in the stadium, there's a lot of high emotion. But I think we ended off on a great note. We dominated this week, this assignment, everything that Coach [Terry Smith] instilled in us last week. We just showed out on Saturday, so I think it was a great outcome." Some fans looked on from the tempo- rary bleachers that were erected on the west side of the stadium. Those seat- ing areas didn't exist a year ago. Penn State was waiting until after its first- round College Football Playoff matchup against SMU last Dec. 21 to knock down the press box, and it needed to get the demolition work finished before it could begin its overhaul. With no CFP game on tap this year, work on the ongoing $700 million reno- vation project can start earlier than it did last winter, which means those seats will once again cease to exist. The next step in Penn State's rebuild involves the stationing of a large crane outside the footprint of Beaver Stadi- um's west side. Once in place, the crane will be used to help take down the tem- porary seats. InProduction, the com- pany that built the seats last summer, will oversee their removal. After the temporary bleachers have been dismantled, work will continue on the permanent structure. The west side of the stadium will feature a taller, modernized seating area with more pre- mium options like suites and club-level options. Some parts of the project have been under construction continuously. Even during the football season, work was being done on the stadium, with brief stoppages on the weekends of Penn State's seven home games. Speaking to reporters last summer, athletics direc- tor Patrick Kraft outlined the process. "What you will see there will be walls [going] up," Kraft said in August. "We're still working through the year. We'll stop construction on Thursday night and get ready for game day, but they're going to keep working, for example, on the club level and the main concourse, bathrooms, concessions. All the things that are on those levels, they'll continue to work on. You'll start to see after the year, the super structure [will go up]. You'll see us go back up higher to get the upper level done in the offseason. "They'll continue to do all the things they can behind the scenes. You will not get to see the depth of the concourses, because we're blocking it off so that we can continue to do construction." The project is expected to be com- pleted before the start of the 2027 sea- son. ■ With Season Over, Construction Project Ramps Back Up G R E G P I C K E L | G R E G . P I C K E L @ O N 3 . C O M Even with Beaver Stadium under construction, Penn State averaged 107,132 fans per game during its seven home con- tests in 2025. PHOTO BY MARK SELDERS/PENN STATE ATHLETICS