Note: This is the third in a three-part series previewing several aspects of Penn State’s 2026 football season. You can see part two here.
I think this Penn State football season – at least at this moment in time – is less about the actual football and the results that will come from it.
I don’t know that right now this football season is truly even about Matt Campbell.
I think the 2026 Penn State football season – at least of the waning hours of Aug. 27 into the early hours of Aug. 28 as I write this – is about the fan experience.
This is a very biased take in part because of all of the legitimate and quasi-legitimate and semi-quasi-sort-kinda-legitimate Penn State news sources – and those who control the show inside of Beaver Stadium – I’m not sure there is anyone out there besides my cohost Steve that thinks about the gameday experience as much as we do.
That is a cornerstone of the podcast and the blog, and those efforts have continued through this summer and will continue through this football season. (At this point you all seem to enjoy what we do, and more importantly we enjoy the slice of Penn State we take so we will continue that for as many football seasons as possible.)
While I enjoy giving you my opinions on how games will play out every Thursday before a game and every Saturday to Sunday after a game – depending on what time we get out of lot 45 – what I have come to start to think more about when it comes to gamedays is the experience.
But with so many unknowns about this Penn State football season, the most obvious controlled variable is change to the foundation. Beaver Stadium is in the midst of a $700 million renovation and for the common folks – those not willing to donate either $2,500 or $10,000 to have premium seating – much of that renovation will essentially feel done by the time you crawl your way up to a letter section, even or odd side of the aisle and sequential seat. (By 2027, that experience will be different too.)
That is why – if you are a die-hard Stuff Somers Says fan which is mostly people Steve and I are related to in various forms – you’ll note that in the final part of our three-week journey to preview various aspects of the football season, I am taking us down a direction of fandom and not coaching.
I think Matt Campbell seems like the right hire. He has said and done everything to this point in a manner that I like and respect. But he’s not coached a football game here yet. He’s not found out what is on this roster cobbled together from Ames, State College and just about everywhere in between. He’s not developed his style that we became so finely aware of we could pick apart the evolution of phrases and write several hundred words about at this point.
Eventually, probably by the time the former Iowa State head coach has some sort of result in the win or loss column in the evening hours of Sept. 5, we will be able to do just that.
But for right now, the gameday experience feels more obvious. More important, it feels more important than ever – in part because of that $700 million, still one-year-away-from-being-complete renovation.
Penn State fans are being asked for more. While ticket prices remained flat between 2025 and 2026, there are new ways for Penn State to take your money. Some of them were implemented last year and some of them – especially some pricey ones – were implemented just last week.
And already fans know the increased costs they will be facing ahead of the 2027 and 2028 football seasons just to walk through the soon-to-be branded gates of Beaver Stadium.
Penn State is due for an overhaul and a greater improvement in the gameday experience. It feels as though throughout the season Penn State starts off in a test phase and improves every week until it repeats the process all over again. Last year, the addition of the Did You Notice series noted those gameday changes.
But now fans are being asked for more in the monetary sense. They are also being asked in the non-monetary sense by giving up traditions like parting ways with Nike for adidas (although what appears to be the right move so far) or the addition of a name to the field at Beaver Stadium, which has seemingly turned into an addition of a name to the stadium.
At some point soon, it feels the inevitable jersey patch – something that fans of Steve’s era quibbled about back when Nike wanted to add its logo to the jerseys – is coming in some fashion, paid for by some business that you probably won’t go to more often because of.
They are now necessary evils of the modern college athletics world. But that doesn’t mean that Penn State™ shouldn’t give back to Penn Staters by treating gamedays inside Beaver Stadium as a high-quality event and not just another football game somewhere in the country. At times, it’s felt that way, slightly unpolished in a manner that everyone has an opinion about and some are more warranted than others. And at other moments, like the increased number of fireworks shot off from every roof, it has been elevated.
Now though, there is more pressure not to miss – or rather mess up that experience.
Consider this: This is likely the first time in college football’s modern era that the vast majority of fans will not leave Beaver Stadium or its surrounding cowfields with a permanent — albeit guaranteed — souvenir in the form of a ticket, which have all gone digital since the early part of this decade, or a parking pass, which will be digital for most people starting this football season.
Again, nothing new in this world of fandom – both of the sports and non-sports – variety. But as those things fade away, the Beaver Stadium experience must be amped up. Prices for food – which we will be able to track more clearly – will almost certainly go up even when it feels like at times the quality has gone down. The highly touted sound system that has literally had State College abuzz is a warranted to step in the right direction toward improving gamedays but the sounds that come out of those – “MAKE SOME NOISE” and the 15 songs you’re asked to sing along with for no reason – must get better.
The widened concourse – particularly on the eastern side – will also be a beneficial improvement to the stadium. But can Penn State get you from the bathroom to the chicken basket line to your seat faster? Or can Penn State keep you connected so you can check a text message to ask a family member if they want a chicken basket while you check the scores around the country? Those questions are on my mind more than what will happen on the field this year – at least right now.
Already there have been some bumps – particularly around whatever the crypto ask Penn State is making – and there will be some delays as not all of the bleachers will fully be installed by the time of the White Out.
Penn State this year gets a pass for that because of the construction dust. But pretty soon as Penn State fans, many of whom save for the seven Saturdays we all cherish, are asked for more, there will be a moment of wondering what those dollars are actually getting me.
At some point soon, the conversation will shift. It will be about what happens during the main event that so many people are there for. You will be fired up about Campbell’s play calls or excited about, ideally, any pass that is thrown for more than 15 yards. (Talk about things that needed to change.)
But for right now, what’s on my mind – and I think a lot of other Penn Staters’ minds – is what the first real taste of that $700 million renovation will feel like come Sept. 5. It is time for Penn State to put our money to use.
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