Reports: Penn State Football Avoiding Noon White Out

Thank God.

Penn State football’s White Out game against Washington won’t kick off at noon, according to multiple reports. Former Penn State quarterback Christian Hackenberg suggested the game would start at 3:30 p.m. while the Centre Daily Times’ Jon Sauber reported the game will be tabbed for a 3:30 p.m. or 7 p.m.

Hackenberg said in a video on Instagram reacting to the news of Washington being the White Out opponent, “I couldn’t be more excited about welcoming the Washington Huskies to the Big Ten for their first experience in Beaver Stadium. At 3:30, we are going to get a dark and scary second half.”

With finding an opponent and navigating the TV networks’ schedules, getting the White Out to be an evening kickoff has been challenging. James Franklin said in June, “If we want to provide the opponent, the experience, the time of day that our fan base wants and expects, there’s a lot of pushing and pulling and compromising, working with the conference and working with TV partners to try to find a win-win for everybody.

“I’m probably a lot like the fans in terms of, I want it all. Very few times in life do you get it all,” Franklin continued. “That time of day thing is what’s really become more difficult because of when prime time games now are chosen.”

Penn State’s White Out games have typically come at 7:30 p.m., however, with the rise of FOX’s Big Noon Kickoff production, the best games in the Big Ten often air at the start of the day. Penn State has chosen to face worse opponents in previous White Outs to avoid playing at noon, and it seems the program was able to avoid playing Illinois just to play at least some of the game against the backdrop of the night sky.