This weekend marks the start of a new era in major college football as a first round of home-field games will be played in the first 12-team playoff. Saturday that era’s beginning includes a game at Beaver Stadium between Penn State and SMU.
This new era of playoffs, big money and big paydays are the future of college football. It is a present and future where players have no choice but to leave their current teams as soon as possible. The marketplace dictates that they grab a spot at the school of their choice and maximize their NIL deals before the music stops and they’re left without a chair.
On Monday, Coach James Franklin correctly pointed out that the players and teams are hostages to this new era. Not to be critical of any one coach or program, but the visuals of these press conferences are telling. Head coaches stand behind a microphone with the CFP logo, in front of a backdrop with a corporate logo and behind a display of three different bottles of Gatorade products. They aren’t there in case a coach gets thirsty; it is product and logo placement.
It is a new level of commercialization, monetization and professionalization of a sport that previously tried to downplay those aspects of the game. Even though Alabama’s Coach Bryant drank Coke and ate Golden Flake potato chips, it still seemed innocent then. But those days are over, marked by open talk of betting lines, a heretofore unspoken aspect of the sport.
The 12-team playoff is the next bold step into that new era.
But as we cross that threshold, here at Penn State this weekend marks the end of another era, an era driven from present into past by financial forces.
This will be the last game in Beaver Stadium as we know it. Shortly after Saturday’s game the dismantling of the west side of the stadium will begin. The next two seasons may be messy as the team plays games adjacent to a de facto construction zone.
What you will see emerge will be a new design. The unique blue-collar steel, concrete and stone will be replaced by a welcome center, lots of glass, a club, suites and expensive seating for well-heeled patrons.
Saturday will be one last dance for the season ticket holders who’ve held those seats in their families for decades. Many of those families fall into the category for whom the money spent on Penn State games represents a significant investment of their discretionary income, not a throwaway use of surplus income or a corporate expense to write off.
So, before we head down that path, it is fitting to take a moment to salute the era of the old-school West-Siders in Beaver Stadium and revisit some of the ghosts of the soon to be gone press box. The old gray battleship on the hill is going to be forever altered.
The West-Siders had front row seats to the visiting team. Think of the great coaches that paced that sideline; Paul Bryant, Woody Hayes, Lou Holtz, Tom Osborne, Bobby Bowden, Nick Saban, Urban Meyer and Barry Alvarez.
Thirteen different players who won Heisman Trophies in their careers went into and out of the game from that west side sideline (they lost nine of those 13 matchups). That list includes college football immortals Ernie Davis (Syracuse), Doug Flutie (Boston College), Roger Staubach (Navy), Ron Dayne (Wisconsin), Tim Brown (Notre Dame) and Tony Dorsett (Pitt). Other greats played here from Tom Brady (Michigan) to Dan Marino (Pitt) to Drew Brees (Purdue).
While those coaches and players came as the enemy, the great fans of Penn State recognized that there are no great triumphs without the fierce competition of a worthy foe. And oh, how Penn State fans relished indelible moments of victory etched into our collective memory. And a number of them happened on that west side.
The great Kenny Jackson took a crossing route and turned up the west sideline for a decisive TD to beat #5 Pitt in 1982. The Penn State defense made a fourth-and-1 stop inside their own 5-yard line to beat No. 3 Alabama in 1983. In what is the coldest game in Beaver Stadium history, Penn State stopped a two-point conversion headed to the west side to beat No. 7 Notre Dame 21-20. The single-digit wind chills left several PSU players with frostbite. There was an inexplicable one-handed catch by Bobby Engram in the ’94 rout of No. 21 Ohio State. And who can forget Joe Nastasi running to the west on a fake field goal to clinch the Snow Bowl win over No. 13 Michigan in 1995?
Derrick Williams fielded a dangerous punt on the west side before cutting east for a TD in the first full-stadium White Out to propel PSU to a win over Notre Dame in 2007. Tailback Bill Belton ran towards the west side in the fourth OT to beat Michigan in 2013.
West side fans saw Tamba Hali hit Troy Smith and cause a fumble recovered by Scott Paxson to seal the 2005 win over No. 6 Ohio State. And lightning would strike again in 2016 as Grant Haley scooped up a blocked field goal and returned it down the west side for the game-winning TD over No. 2 Ohio State.
And perhaps the greatest collision in the history of the stadium occurred when quarterback Michael Robinson ran over a would-be Minnesota tackler, creating a crack of pads that temporarily silenced the stadium in 2005.
But the silence was rare.
Above it all was the press box. From there came the booming voice of the PA announcer to read off “In scores of other games…” or to call someone to “Report to the First Aid Station….under the west stands.”
That broadcast booth was home to the great combo of Fran Fisher and George Paterno. Surely their ghosts hover there still on game days. Legendary broadcaster Ray Scott called Penn State games for years.
Brent Musberger. Ron Franklin.
Keith Jackson. Whoa Nelly.
The present-day greats from Chris Fowler to Brad Nessler to Sean McDonough to Gus Johnson to Steve Levy and so many more have called the action. Analysts from Todd Blackledge to Bob Griese to Gary Danielson to Greg McElroy to Kirk Herbstreit to Joel Klatt have watched from that perch high above the stadium. Everyone from Lynn Swann to Tom Rinaldi to Lisa Salters have been joined by Erin Andrews, Jenny Taft, Molly McGrath, Holly Rowe, Katie George and Jenny Dell to report from the west side.
Some of the greatest sportswriters of all time worked there, from Dan Jenkins to Ivan Maisel to Rick Reilly to Dennis Dodd to Ralph Russo to Merv Hyman and Joe Posnanski. Ridge Riley wrote The Football Letter from there and was succeeded by John Black. And Ronnie Christ, Bill Lyons and a host of beat writers now gone spent every Saturday there.
And all of them were reliant on sports information directors like John Morris, Dave Baker, Budd Thalmann and Jeff Nelson.
But of all the players and coaches who’ve stood as opponents and all the great media members who haunted the west side, it has always been the fans that made that place so special.
As kids we’d pass ticket stubs through the chain link fence to get friends into the game. (Even State College native Chris Fowler admitted to having committed that victimless crime.)
The Big Uglies call the west side home. Mifflinburg resident Bob Werba painted his bald head with paw prints for each game with the loving approval of his long-time wife, Edythe. The faculty/staff tickets were on the west side for years.
In the future, a new modern section with all the pricey amenities will rise on the ground where the humble soul of the current west side once stood. Fans will likely look out on Acrisure or Utz or Draft Kings (or another corporate name) Field at Beaver Stadium.
Certainly, there are many more stories to be told. These are the memories of a guy who sat in the kid’s section without missing a game. These are but the reflections of a guy who spent three years in high school working for $10 a game doing stats and collecting the “scores of other games” for the PA announcer on Saturday. These are but reflections of a man who spent 17 years coaching and calling plays from a headset high above the action.
And yet there is one more story to share…
Late in the 2008 win over Michigan, we were looking to run out the clock and threw a screen pass behind the line from a backup quarterback to backup tailback Stephon Green on our own 20-yard line. As fate would have it, Green broke into the open and outran the Wolverine defense down the west sideline on his way to a score that made the final score 46-17.
Below our coaches’ box, some fans were pounding the steel wall of the press box and yelling up to us. With the game in hand, I leaned forward through the window to ask what they were saying. They told me that the late TD had covered the spread and helped them hit the over. I laughed as they yelled “Thank you, thank you, thank you.”
But to the venerable old west side and all the West Siders that have made this place a stadium treasured above all others, the thanks belongs to you.
