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Penn State White Out Will Actually Be Worth Watching This Year + Big Noon Kickoff is Ruining College Football
By Kyle Pagan
Published:
Even as a Penn State hater I can admit the White Out is one of the best traditions in college football:
Chills every single time.
The good news is that it’s officially back now with a legit opponent against Oregon, which could potentially be a top-10 matchup:
Aright no more niceties. I can’t wait to watch my favorite James Franklin: Big Game James under the lights in primetime. He’s already chomping at the bit thinking about which student he can fight with in the stands for questioning the infallible BGJ.
Stop me if you’ve heard this before, but the Nittany Lions have another cake walk schedule to start the season before they get 14 days to prepare for the Ducks in Happy Valley. They’ll then march all over UCLA, Northwestern, and Iowa, have no more than one loss, and everyone will say they’re the real deal before Ohio State blows their doors off again on the road. They’ll finish with two losses be a 4-7 seed in the Playoff after the SEC beats each other up, and everyone in Happy Valley can pat themselves on the back for another great season when they lose in the second round to an SEC team. Rinse and repeat until Franklin’s decade long contract extension is up. At least you’ll get a White Out game worth remembering this year even though the home field advantage is a little skewed. They’re 13-8 all-time with wins over unranked Minnesota (2023) and Washington (2024), #24 Iowa, and #10 SMU in the first round of the Playoff last year, which arguably had no business being their over Alabama. So that 13-8 is a little skewed due to the competition (and the fact they count a CFB Playoff game as a WOG), but you could also argue they were forced to play Washington because their home game against Ohio State kicked off at noon.
Which brings me to how much of terrible anchor Big Noon Kickoff continues to be on college football. Thank god this year BNK backed off for whatever reason, but it doesn’t mean they still aren’t ruining CFB schedules. This year we’ve got Texas vs. Ohio State. A potential top-5 matchup. Arch Manning. Jeremiah Smith. A perfect game for under the lights at The Horseshoe, right? Nope. Since FOX doesn’t want to compete with ESPN the game will be starting before half the country has even wiped the boogers from their eyeballs. Ohio State tried to switch it to Sunday, but Texas didn’t want a short week to prepare for it’s Week 2 opponent. Now could all of this been solved by just having BNK at The Shoe and still having the game later? Of course. But FOX has to have their precious pregame show lead into the game while still no one watches it over College Gameday. Suits suck.
Kyle writes blog posts and does Man on the Street-style videos all around Philadelphia. He graduated from Temple University (a basketball school) in 2015. contact: k.pagan@sportradar.com