Good morning from Beaver Stadium where the Penn State Nittany Lions (2-0) are set to face the Central Florida Knights (2-0) in the first night game of the season. Penn State enters the game undefeated after edging Syracuse in the opener at MetLife Stadium and dominating Eastern Michigan in the home opener last Saturday. UCF has defeated Akron and FIU convincingly coming into Week 3 against Penn State. UCF is led by head coach George O'Leary, a former mentor of Bill O'Brien from their time together at Georgia Tech. Bill O'Brien will face Central Florida for the first time as a head coach and will look to add on to the Nittany Lions' perfect record (2-0) against the Knights from the Paterno era.
We’re just one day away from the first night game of the season. The football team is 2-0 after a dominant win in the home opener against Eastern Michigan last Saturday. The Nittany Lions face off against the UCF Knights tomorrow night and will try and keep that perfect record alive. Kickoff is at 6:00 p.m. Let’s take a look at what our writers think about the game.
The Nittany Lions have played the Central Florida Knights twice in the past. The first game was back in 2002 when Penn State barely edged UCF for a 27-24 win. Their next matchup came in 2004 when Penn State posted 524 yards of offense while holding UCF to just 181 yards in route to a 37-13 victory. When kickoff comes tomorrow evening at Beaver Stadium, expect a close matchup similar to the game from '02. Here's everything you need to know heading into tomorrow's evening game.
Penn State is widely known for its whiteout games and the intense atmosphere that each brings. Traditionally, Penn State has one "official" full-stadium whiteout per season, with a few student-declared whiteouts sprinkled in. When the UCF game was declared a whiteout earlier this week, some students complained on social media that having a student whiteout this early in the season for a non-conference opponent makes the exercise less special.
John Bacon, author of the polarizing novel Fourth and Long: The Fight for the Soul of College Football, spoke at Penn State's John Curley Center for Sports Journalism last night. The event, moderated by newly anointed Knight Chair in Sports Journalism and Society John Affleck, had a small crowd of about 30 to 40 people in the Carnegie Cinema.
Earlier this afternoon, Penn State announced what most students already expected: Penn State's Homecoming game against Michigan will be the full-stadium "White House."