Blue White Illustrated

P E N N S T A T E F O O T B A L L >> B L U E - rom his very first day on the job, James Franklin has talked about creating a feeling of community around his football program, so it makes sense that he would want to bring the family together for the Blue-White Game. The extended family, it should be noted. Franklin has said several times during the past few months that he would love to see Beaver Stadium packed with fans, and he'll likely put out another plea this week as game day approaches, or maybe see what he can do about get- ting that #107KStrong hashtag trending on Twitter. Said Franklin, "We're ex- pecting the place to be rocking." That's a big ask, of course, even at a place like Penn State, where a lot of peo- ple would tell you their second-favorite spectator sport, after football, is spring football. Unlike Ohio State, which set a record for spring game attendance when it welcomed 100,189 fans to the Horse- shoe last year, Penn State needs to draw from well outside its local community to have any shot at filling the stadium. The total population of the Centre Region is approximately 105,000, so even if every man, woman and child in State College and its surrounding townships showed up on game day, there still would be empty seats. That's not the case in Columbus, which is home to about 2 million people, many of whom are so engrossed in Buckeye football minutia they could probably tell you what Urban Meyer had for breakfast this morning. Not that Penn State is entirely depend- ent on Happy Valley. It also draws from Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, Harrisburg, Scranton/Wilkes-Barre, the Lehigh Val- ley and the Baltimore/Washington, D.C., region. But for those fans, attending the spring game requires more than just a three- or four-hour commitment. It often entails three or four hours on the road just getting to State College. And with this year's game kicking off at 3 p.m., a lot of those fans are going to end up staying overnight. So even though the game itself is free to attend, the ancillary costs (which now include stadium park- ing) aren't inconsequential. The best-attended spring game in school history was the 2009 edition, in which an estimated crowd of 76,500 fans poured into the stadium to watch the Nittany Lions return to action for the first time since falling to Southern WORKING CROWD F James Franklin aims to use spring game as a way to keep building momentum THE

• Cover