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HBO Cameras Not Impacting Penn State Football’s Preparation For Purdue

HBO’s camera crews are in Happy Valley this week to follow Penn State football’s preparation for its game against Purdue on Saturday.

The network is featuring the Nittany Lions as one of four teams on “24/7 College Football,” which will premiere at 10 p.m. Wednesday. The series will chronicle four major Division I football programs’ preparations for a game. Florida, the team that’ll be featured on tonight’s debut episode, Penn State, Arizona State, and Washington State will all be featured on the show, which was officially announced last month.

Although HBO will give a huge audience an inside look behind the scenes of Penn State football, head coach James Franklin said it hasn’t changed his team’s preparation for Purdue too much.

“We have our own WPSU [camera crews] around so much, and they do such a fantastic job for us,” Franklin said Tuesday. “The reality is it’s not going to be a whole lot different than what we already have, and it’s not like these guys are walking around with ‘HBO’ plastered all around them. We have cameras around our building all the time.”

Unrivaled: The Penn State Football Story” is a university-sanctioned YouTube series that’s four episodes into its sixth season. That’s what Franklin was alluding to when he referenced the cameras around his program. Because of that, adding an additional camera and sound guy from HBO hasn’t been too much of an adjustment.

Interestingly, Franklin said he wasn’t always crazy about the idea of having his team featured on HBO or on an HBO-style series. However, conversations with his team’s leadership council and the current state of his program changed his mind.

“I really wasn’t on board with doing it for a lot of different reasons,” he said. “A few years ago, we were at a different point as a program. Where our locker room is at right now — our chemistry, our depth, our recruiting, our staff — without getting into specifics, I think we are in a good place right now and we can handle it.

“We’ve got such a wonderful university here and program and history and traditions and the community and the type of support that we get,” Franklin added. “I want to make sure that everybody in the United States knows how special this place is. Being able to have HBO, which has tremendous expertise in doing this, peak behind the curtain and allow people maybe a more comprehensive review of how we do things is important.”

Defensive tackle Robert Windsor described having HBO in town this week as “just another camera in the room.” Windsor was also asked about the Houston Texans’ competition involving the best Bill O’Brien impersonations on the team, which was documented on the 2015 season of “Hard Knocks.”

Will Penn State’s episode of “24/7 College Football” — which will air on October 9 — feature a similar segment?

“I don’t know, but we can get that arranged,” Windsor said before naming Antonio Shelton as the best James Franklin impressionist on the team.

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About the Author

Mikey Mandarino

In the most upsetting turn of events, Mikey graduated from Penn State with a digital & print journalism degree in the spring of 2020. He covered Penn State football and served as an editor for Onward State from 2018 until his graduation. Mikey is from Bedminster, New Jersey, so naturally, he spends lots of time yelling about all the best things his home state has to offer. Mikey also loves to play golf, but he sucks at it because golf is really hard. If you, for some reason, feel compelled to see what Mikey has to say on the internet, follow him on Twitter @Mikey_Mandarino. You can also get in touch with Mikey via his big-boy email address: [email protected]

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