Blue White Illustrated

M A T T   H E R B | M A T T @ B L U E W H I T E O N L I N E . C O M O C T O B E R 1 9 , 2 0 1 6 B L U E W H I T E O N L I N E . C O M 9 THUNDER ROAD Visitors to Beaver Stadium receive a high-volume welcome on White Out weekends Grant Haley was a late addition to Penn State's recruiting class in 2014, so his first glimpse of Beaver Stadium came during a hastily arranged recruiting visit when it was empty and covered in a blan- ket of January snow. He hadn't witnessed a White Out be- fore his freshman season, unlike so many of his teammates, who had attended one of those deafening, high-intensity games against the likes of Michigan or Ohio State as part of a recruiting weekend. He heard stories, but when he took the field against Ohio State as a true freshman amid the roar of a packed stadium, it quickly became apparent that even the firsthand accounts hadn't done the ex- perience justice. "Hearing about it and then seeing it are two different things," he said. "When you see it, it's just something [that] catches the eye. It's unexplainable, the atmos- phere. It's unreal." Penn State is getting set to host its 13th White Out game when it welcomes Ohio State again this weekend. The second- ranked Buckeyes have won their past 20 road games and their past 13 night games, so they won't be easily rattled. But that won't stop Penn State fans from trying their best to disrupt J.T. Barrett and company to whatever degree is pos- sible. The annual White Out tradition dates back to 2004, when the student section dressed in white for a matchup with un- defeated, ninth-ranked Purdue. The Lions lost that one, 20-13, but the idea took off. There were two more student White Outs in 2005 and '06, and in '07, for an early-evening game against Notre Dame, Penn State decided to extend the monochromatic theme to the entire sta- dium. The Lions won the game, 31-10, and there's been a full-stadium White Out every year since, except in 2010 when there was a student-only White Out for the Michigan game. Although the idea predated James Franklin's arrival by a decade, he has em- braced it wholeheartedly. "I think the White Out exemplifies what this place is all about," he said. "It's about our com- munity coming together – the fans, the professors, our alumni and our players and going into that stadium and having fun together and representing Penn State the right way. It's special, there's no doubt about it. Everybody knows about the academics and all those things, but I think I've said this before, I think THON and football, when you can get that many people pulling together for one common cause and to do something bigger than just themselves, it really connects and unifies this school and this community like very few places in the country. So it's special." Over the years, the Buckeyes have proven largely impervious to hostile crowds. Just this past Saturday, they emerged victorious from another Big Ten hornets' nest, Camp Randall Stadium, rallying past Wisconsin in overtime, 30- 23. With the Buckeyes favored by 20 points against Penn State, Franklin has asked attendees to be louder than ever. "We're going to need our fans. We're going to need our alumni. We're going to need everybody," he said. "This is a tremendous challenge that we're facing all together, and we're going to need the stadium to be the most difficult environ- ment in the history of college football come Saturday night." But White Outs do more for Penn State than just make it harder for opponents to run their offense. They also help attract the kind of prospects that the Nittany Lions need in order to do battle with the nation's best. "The White Out is one of the reasons why you come to Penn State, just seeing that atmosphere, seeing how electrifying it is," Haley said. "We have people at Nit- tanyville, almost 700 people staying out there every single night [this week]. It just shows how much Penn State fans love us and support us through anything. Just coming out there on Saturday, under the lights and seeing it all white, it's a scene that you can't really put in words. I think that's just an extra, extra thing for us." The first full- stadium White Out was in 2007 when Penn State played host to Notre Dame. Photo by Annemarie Mountz

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