Blue White Illustrated

T H E 2 0 1 5 S E A S O N Scarlet Knights, there was a lot to be positive about, including the crowd that turned out for the game. Said Franklin, "This is one of the main reasons that Penn State is so special, the type of sup- port we get from this community, and I want to thank everybody." The "Stripe Out" game against Rut- gers was the third-best-attended game of the Franklin era. Since the start of the 2014 season, Penn State has averaged 100,861 fans per home game, or 94.6 percent of the stadium's capacity. That's a signi6cant uptick from the av- erage attendance during the Bill O'Brien era (96,659), and it presumably re7ects a rising sense of optimism as the impact of the NCAA sanctions starts to fade. It probably doesn't re7ect any particular enthusiasm for the stadium itself. Its exposed girders and spartan amenities may 6t well with the blue-collar iconography of the program, but no- body cares about symbolism when they've been sitting on a slab of cold aluminum for three hours. In August, a column by Mike Poorman of statecollege.com sparked a debate over the stadium's future by posing a provocative question: If it needs sub- stantial improvements, as athletic direc- tor Sandy Barbour indicated during the Coaches Caravan this past spring, should Penn State consider building a new one instead? It sounds, on its face, like an impossi- bility. Although the NCAA sanctions may be over and Intercollegiate Athletics may be in the black – it had a gross op- erating surplus of $4.8 million for the past 6scal year, according to a report that associate AD Rick Kaluza recently gave to the board of trustees – the cost estimates involved in building a new stadium range from mind-blowing to eye-watering to trust-us-you-don't- even-wanna-know. But 6xing up the ex- isting stadium would be expensive, too, and an overhaul of the restrooms and concessions, while long overdue, is probably not going to cut it. Adding to the complexity is the lack of any real consensus over what fans want or what the football program is going to need in the decades to come. Does Penn State need a gaudy showplace that would be a little less capacious but a lot more comfortable? Although the words gaudy showplace and Beaver Stadium probably don't deserve to be in such close proximity, the university could conceivably retro6t the 55-year-old structure with chair-back seats, build some more concession stands and rest- rooms and cover up all that structural steel with a brick or limestone exterior wall – provided, of course, that the structure itself is strong enough to allay any safety concerns. Or the university could start fresh somewhere on the east side of campus. Unlike its fellow Big Ten schools, most TRUE COLORS Penn State's "Stripe Out" game against Rutgers was a big success, as 103,323 fans saw the Nittany Lions rout the Scarlet Knights, 28-3. Photo by Steve Manuel

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