Say goodbye to your paper ticket collections, folks.

Upon entering Gate A for Penn State football’s 2023 season opener against West Virginia, the student body was greeted not by a paper ticket, but by a green wristband. While this transition may have improved annual security concerns, it felt like a piece of the Penn State gameday experience was gone Saturday.

While both forms of ticketing are used to give students a sense of direction once inside the admission gates, the 22,000-piece paper trail has seemingly departed for good. Whether your classic paper ticket found its new home amongst the chicken baskets left in the student section or a collection is displayed in your apartment next to its previous counterparts, there was a rectangular-shaped hole left in all of our hearts Saturday.

Generations of Penn Staters have collected their tickets as a way to hang on to their time in Beaver Stadium, and once the stadium moved to digital ticketing in 2019, the paper tickets became an exclusive addition to the student ticket already living in thousands of Apple Wallets.

My first-ever Penn State football ticket is displayed proudly on my bedroom bulletin board, and every time I look over, I can hear the cheers from the crowd of the first game back in Beaver Stadium in 2021 following the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Nittany Lions handled Ball State 44-13, and with that 5.5″ x 2″ piece of paper, live memories that will stick with me forever.

This evidence of my college career has followed me the past two seasons, from my first White Out against Auburn to a devastating loss to Ohio State, and I will always have these dated items to show for it.

At the end of every season, pouring over your seven tickets and reminiscing on the good and the bad times spent from sections EAU to WAU, will now be replaced with a plethora of cut, green ribbon.

Nevertheless, there are always new collections to start.