On January 4, 2009, Onward State posted its first ever football post, a recap of the 2009 Rose Bowl. Every day since then, our sports writing staff has dedicated themselves to delivering a wide range of features, recaps, and analysis.

We’ve gone to almost every home and away football game over the past few years, as well as most basketball, volleyball, and other sporting events, and paid most of the expenses out of our own pocket. We understand the price of delivering quality content, and are proud to travel to other campuses around the country to do what we love, and to represent Dear Old State. But this season, we need your help.

In the 2014 season opener, James Franklin will lead his Penn State Nittany Lions onto the field for the first time in Dublin, Ireland as part of the first annual Croke Park Classic against Central Florida. This will be the first time that the Nittany Lions play outside of the United States, and promises to be a once-in-a-lifetime experience for both players and fans. Our staff has been able to independently fund our past trips, but this one is a bit out of our reach. With that in mind, we have decided to humbly ask you, our beloved readers, for your help.

We have started a GoFundMe campaign to help our staff raise money to make the trip to Ireland. Our staff needs your help to raise money for plane tickets, a hotel room, fees, and other travel expenses. There are multiple donation levels, and each has a different prize, including entries into a drawing for an autographed football and other cool stuff.

Budget breakdown: We plan to send 3 staff members (2 writers, 1 photographer) to Ireland to cover the game. It will cost almost $5,000 for the travel portion of the trip (getting to the airport, flights, and fees). Our hotel in Dublin will be almost $500, and we rounded to $6,000 to account for any other costs that we may have missed. Any money left over will go towards funding road trips for the rest of the season. Onward State plans on making trips to Rutgers University, Indiana University, the University of Michigan, the University of Illinois, and (hopefully) the Big Ten Championship Game in Indianapolis to cover the football games.

Onward State plans to provide the best coverage of the dawn of the James Franklin era through exceptional photographs, analysis, and recaps. Here are some examples of our coverage from the 2013 season:

Best photographs from the 2013 season
Top plays of the 2013 season
Football archive