Auburn football has certainty seen its fair share of big game environments. The Tigers are part of one of the great rivalries in college football after all.
But anything new in sports presents a unique challenge. Sure, Auburn has been to Alabama and LSU. It has heard loud crowds across the SEC and seen wild pregame atmospheres. But it hasn’t been to Penn State.
And while loud might be loud, nothing is quite like an avalanche of sound all dressed in white. If nothing else, it’s new and new things can be a challenge.
“We have a speaker system and all that. I don’t think that we’re going to get it exactly the way it’s going to be on game night,” Auburn coach Bryan Harsin said earlier this week. “But we’ll crank the music up or the sound and the crowd noise, the music, whatever it is that we have to use to make it very loud. And then we’re going to have to simulate a little bit that we can’t hear at certain times so be ready for that.”
Penn State has won three of its last four White Out meetings but hasn’t played an out-of-conference opponent in a White Out since the Nittany Lions hosted Alabama in 2011. The Tide rolled fairly easily in that contest to the tune of 27-11 in what would turn out to be the final season of the Joe Paterno. Auburn is also the only non-Michigan or Ohio State team to play in front of a White Out since Alabama, with Notre Dame the only other team to receive the same treatment. The Irish were the first team to play Penn State in a full-stadium White Out, in 2007.
Ranked at No. 22 in the latest AP Poll, Auburn is the lowest ranked team to get the White Out treatment since Penn State faced No. 22 Illinois in 2008.
“I think ultimately part of playing on the road in a big crowd, you do have crowd noise; you do need to deal with that. But it’s all the other things, too,” Harsin added. “You’re not going to have the rest of your team. We travel 80 guys, and maybe that might even be better for us at the end of the day. Just more focused, because there’s less distractions on the side. But you don’t have your entire team on the field there. You don’t have the whole entourage of everybody on the sideline.
“And so you’ve got to get that motivation and support from your teammates on the sideline there. We’ve got to do a great job of being able to just identify what’s happening and know that the other 10 guys around you are going to do their job. And that’s a big part of preparation, is knowing the guys around you are going to do their job because there may not be an opportunity to communicate.”
Ultimately, playing in a White Out game – heck even witnessing one – is among the great things in sports. Harsin isn’t looking for his team to fear the moment but instead enjoy it for what it is: a whole lot of fun and a great opportunity to pick up a marquee road win.
But that road win likely won’t come easy. Penn State’s opponent hasn’t scored more than 30 points in regulation in a White Out game since 2012 and the Nittany Lions have lost a White Out game in regulation just twice in the last seven games.
“Embrace it. Be a guy that embraces that,” Harsin said. “Enjoy the opportunity to play in somebody else’s house and to go in there and play good football. So to me, it’s more really about the mind-set that you take into the week and what you have as you look forward to playing on the road somewhere else.
“It really starts upstairs, and it’s already begun… We’ll have all the opportunities to prepare ourselves properly, and if we do that right it’s just a matter of playing and getting out there and enjoying the environment, enjoying the opportunity of being in somebody’s house and going out there and executing what we need to do.”
As for Penn State coach James Franklin, Saturday is a chance to get things even more back to normal on the recruiting trail. While a White Out might prove to be a daunting opponent in its own right for visiting teams, it’s the program’s best selling point with all the flash and glamour money can buy and showcase.
And with dozens – if not over 100 – prospects on campus to take it all in, the future of Penn State’s program can come down to the atmosphere the program puts on display Saturday as much as the result itself.
“This White Out game, year in and year out, goes a long way toward shaping our future,” Franklin said. “You think about how many great players that have come to Penn State, that talk about the White Out game having a significant impact in their recruiting process and in their decision. So getting as many of the top players nationally here as possible as well as getting all of the regional players here on campus we think is really important.”
