Fifty days and counting. As of Arts Festival Friday, there are only seven weeks and one day until Penn State’s much-anticipated 2025 season-opener on Aug. 30 vs. Nevada in Beaver Stadium.
Make that a (partially) renovated Beaver Stadium. It may not be a work of art this fall — even athletic director Pat Kraft says so — but it could provide the backdrop for a masterpiece of a season.
After tearing down the press box in January and shortly thereafter removing the west side upper deck and some ground structures, construction crews have been at work building a new foundation for the upper west stands as part of Penn State’s massive $700 million renovation of Beaver Stadium, built in 1960.
The key final set-up of adding temporary stands — with seating for nearly 7,500 fans, according to Kraft — is still to come.
It will be a race to the temporary finish. I stopped by the stadium late Thursday afternoon, and here’s how the west side stands — sans upper deck seating — look from ground level:
On July 3, Penn State posted a 51-second video hosted by LBU legend and Penn State athletics fundraiser Michael Mauti, giving his second offseason sneak peek of the ongoing stadium renovation.
In the video, Mauti is wearing a fluorescent vest, a white hard hat with an iconic Penn State varsity S, and dark-colored safety glasses.
“Every day counts, every concrete pour counts,” Mauti said in the video, “because this fall, these staircases are going to lead to the most electric environment in college football.”
New, molded concrete staircases that lead to upper deck Beaver Stadium heaven are already in place. The big, final piece are the seats. They will be put in place by the same firm that erects the popular grandstands on the famous (and raucous) 16th hole at the Waste Management Open in Scottsdale, Ariz.
“The team that brought you the loudest hole in golf out at the Waste Management Open is coming in to assemble the grandstands,” Mauti said. “They think they’ve got the loudest hole in golf? Wait ’til they get the loudest environment in college football.”
So, what will the temporary stands look like when they are in place?
The graphic above is a still from a 31-second video Penn State created and posted on its GoPSUtv YouTube channel in early January, nearly six months ago. (Watch it here.) That was the first — and last — official best guess of what the temporary bleachers will look like when in place. If that is the case, there will be few gaps in the White Out on Sept. 27, when Oregon visits Beaver Stadium for a 7:30 p.m. kickoff on NBC.
By the looks of it, there will be a smaller temporary press box at the base of those temporary stands, roughly the same place where it had been for the stadium’s first 65 years.
“It will look very temporary,” Kraft said in February of the just-in-time seating. “Honestly, I think the temp seats may have a better seat than they have right now, in the old west side…. We should be at full capacity. With the [temporary seating], we should be really, really close.”
Beaver Stadium’s official capacity in 2024 was 106,572.
Previously, Penn State announced that to service the upper west deck there will be “temporary concession and restroom amenities for the season.”
The project will continue after the 2025 and 2026 seasons. The completed Beaver Stadium is expected to be ready for the 2027 season. Penn State’s opening home game in 2027 is expected to be played on Sept. 4 against Syracuse.
