College football continues to change, folks. For better or for worse.

James Franklin took the stand on Tuesday for the first media availability of spring practice. He discussed several topics and even some changes to the Blue-White Game in April.

More and more college football programs, like USC, Ole Miss, Texas, and Nebraska, are opting out of playing a spring game, and some are deferring to an NFL OTA model. However, Penn State will not follow the trend and will play the Blue-White Game at 2 p.m. on Saturday, April 26, but with some changes.

“For me to, at any point, sit here and say we’re not going to have a spring game, I don’t think that would make sense for a ton of reasons,” Franklin said. “The university schedules a ton of fundraising events around the spring game. A lot of people are in town. It’s like a homecoming for the spring type of deal. So that’s going to factor in always into our decision-making process.”

The first change is that the Blue-White Game will not be televised. In years past, the spring game was aired on the Big Ten Network, but that will not be the case this year. Programs that have nixed their spring games have compared the event to a showcase for other teams to get a free look at their formations, schemes, and players.

Some head coaches, like Nebraska’s Matt Rhule, cited tampering as the main reason for eliminating the Cornhuskers’ spring game and said he had to deal with other programs offering his players after their spring game in 2024.

Franklin never gave a specific reason for why the game wouldn’t air on television but did mention other coaches’ perspectives.

“The game will not be televised for some of the reasons we discussed and you heard other coaches maybe talk about,” Franklin said.

Franklin also said that live hitting is “probably” not a possibility. Another key reason that programs are cutting spring games is for player safety. Because of the threat of injuries, Franklin said the game will have “a mixture of some live and some thud.”

“I want it to be enough that it was worth it and our fans feel like, ‘Hey, I got a pretty good idea of what Penn State football is going to look like,'” Franklin said.

Some other changes Franklin discussed were potentially shortening the game and eliminating halftime.

“There have been years where we’ll have 75,000 people out there, then halftime for 20 minutes, and the parking lot becomes more attractive than the second half and the tailgating,” Franklin said. “So we will probably condense it down. Maybe a little bit shorter quarters. Maybe no halftime.”

However, the game shouldn’t be shortened that much. Franklin said he recognizes the die-hard Nittany Lion fans who will attend the Blue-White Game and said he still wants fans to get excited and “have discussions at the barber shop and at the water jug, discussing what Penn State football will look like next year.”

Franklin said the Blue-White Game will overall be “more similar to what we’ve had in the past.” However, Franklin added that the current plan for the Blue-White Game can change over the next 15 spring practices, but he remains committed to making it work.

“I’ve been at Penn State now long enough to understand the impact that Penn State football has other than this entire community,” Franklin said. “I think everybody is aware of that, right? There needs to be give and take with this. We need to work together. A successful Penn State football program helps everybody out.”