For Beaver Stadium DJ, general do-it-all marketing guru PJ Mullen, things will feel normal this Saturday night right until pregame is set to begin. The teams will leave the field and then…?
No Blue Band, at least not in person. This time it will be a video recorded earlier in the month, but even that can only do so much. The energy will feel different, no pom-poms bouncing to the beat, no crowd standing on in anticipation an hour before kick.
Just some family members, a drop in what would have been a sea of nearly 110,000 strong.
“That’s our secret sauce,” Mullen said of Penn State’s usual Whiteout crowd. “You can’t replicate that. […] Our objective is to do the best we can to make this game day atmosphere feel as normal as possible.”
And that’s easier said than done because it’s hard to turn an empty stadium into more than what it is. All things considered Saturday night and the entirety of Penn State’s home schedule will be an interesting testament to how much a Beaver Stadium crowd actually impacts games. As they say, distance makes the heart grow fonder, but the absence of noise won’t make Ohio State quarterback Justin Fields’ life any harder.
Assuming he would have noticed it in the first place.
“Once you’re in the game, you really don’t notice everything else around you,” Penn State quarterback Sean Clifford said. “You’re just so focused on what you’ve got to do on the field. Other than maybe the sound itself, it doesn’t really change the game once you’re actually in it. But obviously we’d love to have the full whiteout experience […] it’s going to be missed this year but at the same time, you know, we’ve got to start playing so I’m very excited, ‘m juiced up about the game. I’m excited to get out there with my guys and put on a show.”
About that crowd noise, Penn State has a plan to replicate it, but it’s a secret that can’t be shared with you just yet. Of course the Big Ten has rules about when noise can happen and how loud it can be, this isn’t the Wild West. That doesn’t mean you can’t do a little science though.
The actual plans are still unfolding and being set up at Beaver Stadium as we speak, but safe to say they involve science, engineering, a 360 degree recording studio and a fair amount of thought to make the most of the stadium’s configuration. It’s all above board -and the Big Ten will check everything before kick- but as Big Ten teams around the conference try and get a slice of Penn State’s secret sauce, Mullen would only share the plans off the record.
So no leaks from this reporter – this time.
Back on the record, there are little things to deal with. Like what songs do you play? Mullen, who used to work directly within the football program, he is familiar with the soundtrack of practice. At the end of the day being a DJ, or at least being a good one, means understanding your audience.
And in this case, the audience isn’t quite as diverse. There’s no catering to 70 year olds and 15 years olds. No balance between the tastes of 110,000 different people.
“In this situation you’ve got the family members of the team and coaching staff, and then you got the 125 guys on the team,” Mullen said of the musical mix. “So that’s going to be our core audience and the people that we’re catering to. Usually you kind of break it down into a pie where typically it’s your Nittanyville and you student section. Then you’ve got your old school fans, you’ve got your marching band element, and then you’ve got your team element. So you’ve got to figure out how to keep all those areas hyped up and pumped.”
That’s good news for people who have heard Sweet Caroline one too many times, even better for those who have imagined enough dragons.
And don’t forget the Blue Band, while it may not be in the stands, that doesn’t mean it won’t be felt. Be that before the game, or on third down.
“We recorded the band a couple weeks ago in Beaver Stadium, and recorded all their third down hits, and second down,” Mullen added. “The school of theater came over and brought their microphones and all their big time equipment and mastered that recording for us. So we plan to utilize that stuff, the PA announcer, piped in music, and then obviously, we have fans who sent in videos too.”
When it’s all said and done nothing about a Whiteout without fans will be the same, cardboard cutouts or not, families or not. But at the end of the day there’s football and in a year where nothing can be taken for granted, be glad to get what you can.
Better to watch a win from home, than a loss in person.
“This is the reality of it, we’ve known that this is the reality of it and we need to embrace it and be ready for it,” Penn State coach James Franklin said earlier this week. “Our practices will reflect that. Would you love for this community to have a whiteout, would you love for our fan base to have a white out, and our players and specifically our seniors. Yes. I think it’s one of the things that’s special about college football.”
Maybe next year, hopefully.
