Penn State football releases new details for ‘non-traditional’ Blue-White Game

Beaver Stadium will look quite different when Penn State football takes the field for the annual Blue-White Game in 28 days. With work on the school’s $700 million renovation now fully underway, the spring game will be Nittany Lions’ fans’ first true opportunity to see the construction that will impact the gameday experience over the next two seasons.

The university is already advising spectators to expect a “non-traditional” viewing experience. On Saturday, the Penn State athletics social media account put out additional details regarding access and seating for the April 26 event.

With the press box demolished and the West side concourse under construction, seating will not be permitted in sections NB through SK. Fans will only be able to enter the stadium through the two East side gates, A and E.

Details on parking, concessions, and other gameday amenities will be released in the coming weeks.

🔵 ⚪ is just 4 weeks away! This year’s unique and non-traditional Blue-White Game will have a few fans impacts, including entry and seating. We will roll out more details over the next few weeks on parking, concessions and amenities, so stay tuned!#WeAre pic.twitter.com/r1fqwmQYpG

— Penn State Athletics (@GoPSUsports) March 29, 2025

“The spring game is going to be a little interesting,” athletic director Pat Kraft said in February. “And by interesting, I really don’t know what it’s going to look like. You know, we’re expanding the East side concourse, so we’re doubling the East main concourse, and I got to hit a mark of that Nevada game.”

James Franklin discusses Penn State football’s plan for spring game

Penn State football coach James Franklin. © Matthew O’Haren-Imagn Images.

The venue won’t be the only thing different about the 2025 Blue-White Game. After an extended 2024 season, Penn State football is also making changes to the product on the field.

“First thing I’m going to say is, I’ve been at Penn State now long enough to understand the impact that Penn State football has on this entire community,” James Franklin said this week. “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. Bars, restaurants, hotels.

“So 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. 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 factor in always into our decision-making process.”

While Penn State won’t be following the trend of programs canceling their spring games, the Nittany Lions will make a handful of changes to account for player safety, as well as NIL and transfer portal tampering concerns.

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“There are some things that we will not do. The game will not be televised for some of the reasons we discussed and you heard other coaches maybe talk about,” Franklin continued. “And we will have a spring game probably more similar to what we’ve had in the past. At least right now as we go through these 15 days. That could change.

“But I could see it being maybe a little bit shorter. One of the things I don’t think we’ll do is a halftime. There have been years where we’ll have 75,000 people out there. Halftime for 20 minutes, and the parking lot becomes more attractive than the second half and the tailgating. So we will probably condense it down, maybe a little bit shorter quarters, maybe no halftime.

“But also, I know we have some real, real football people in our fan base that want to watch and evaluate our roster, get excited, and have discussion at the barber shop, at the water jug discussing what Penn State football will look like next year. I also think it’s valuable for you guys. So for all those reasons, we’ll still do it, but it’ll probably be a little bit less plays and probably be a little bit shorter amount of time.

“It also probably won’t all be live. It’ll be a mixture of some live and some thud. But back to the question I got early on, when you’re trying to modify, we got so many players that decided to come back, there will be a lot of players that we’re going to modify from live reps.

But I wanted it to be enough that you guys feel like it was worth it and our fans feel like, hey, I got a pretty good feel, idea of what Penn State football is going to look like.”

Kickoff for the 2025 Blue-White Game is set for 2 p.m. on April 26.

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