Word has been out for a while now that Beaver Stadium will be installing new scoreboards, but it now appears that the new video boards will be installed in time for the 2014 season.

In a statement to Onward State, Jason Smith of the university’s Office of Physical Plant said that installation of the scoreboards will “run through the beginning of August 2014 in order to be ready for the September 6th, 2014 game versus Akron.”

“The new 16mm (physical dimension between pixels) SMD (Surface Mounted Display) HD board will fill the entire front of the existing shell and will combine in-game video, game details (score, game clock, down, and distance), and advertising,” Smith said.

One of the more interesting features of this scoreboard is that it will look to be more eco-friendly, despite being larger than the ones currently installed in the stadium.

“PSU hopes to see some potential energy savings since the new boards will be utilizing some of the latest LED technology, even though the new screens will be over three times the size of the video boards,” Smith said.

Smith also went into some of the new features that the scoreboards will have, like closed-captioning, a backlit LED PSU logo, and a sound system similar to the ones that are currently used at Alabama’s Bryant-Denny Stadium and Michigan State’s Spartan Stadium.

The scoreboards will debut during the team’s 2014 home opener, its second game of the year after the Ireland against Central Florida.

Construction planning sessions will begin this week. Onward State will keep you updated as more information comes in.

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Bill DiFilippo