Washington’s players and coaches have seen snippets of Penn State’s rowdy crowds at the annual White Out game. When the Huskies found out this summer that they’d be the Nittany Lions’ opponent for the White Out the team leaned into it.
Immediately, Washington athletic director Pat Chun, who worked at Ohio State from 1997-2012, knew this game would bring plenty of logistical challenges.
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“Everyone wants to play on the big stage. Everyone wants to play in the unique environments,” Chun told The Athletic at last month’s Big Ten media days in Indianapolis. “This is one time per year where one opponent gets to experience a White Out in all of college football, and how fortunate are we to get to go take our university into that environment? It’s part of the reason why we wanted to go to the Big Ten to experience things like this.”
Washington linebacker Carson Bruener, who was born in Pittsburgh where his father, Mark, is a scout for the Steelers, said he has relatives already planning to make the trip. He said they’ve secured an Airbnb for the weekend and have heard stories of congested traffic patterns getting in and out of Happy Valley. Participating in one of college football’s most unique stadium traditions is a benefit of this expanded conference that points as far east as Piscataway, N.J., and as far west as Eugene, Ore.
GO DEEPERPenn State to host White Out game vs. Washington: Did Nittany Lions get it right?This fall, there will be tailgating and sailgating in the Big Ten, where snowflakes in the midwest will meet California sunshine. Beyond the pageantry, new matchups and varied backdrops will make for a season ripe for travel snafus and lessons learned. Teams will finally execute the travel logistics that staffers and athletic directors have spent the last few years preparing for.
“It’s real, and because it’s new it’s going be different,” Oregon quarterback Dillon Gabriel said of Big Ten travel. “Programs have been doing the right thing of communicating how other people travel, and maybe it’s traveling a day earlier to two, and I think that will help. … I think it’s just how you prepare on the front end to help athletes, coaches, everyone involved.”
Team nutritionists have studied their players’ circadian rhythms and staffers have examined runway lengths at airports. They’ve had to decide if football equipment will get driven across the country or stuffed in the belly of the aircraft. Site visits, where team staffers examine the opposing venues to look at details like the hotel, opposing locker room setup and visiting sideline, have been completed, too. Whether it’s best to fly back to campus immediately after a game or sleep at a hotel and fly the next morning has also been up for discussion.
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“I think this year is going to be a lot of information and data collection,” Chun said. “A lot of interviewing of student-athletes, talking to them and seeing (what works best). I think everyone’s going be in the same boat and everyone wants to do what’s best for their student-athletes so I think it allows all the schools after the year to share some of the best practices, things they would do differently and I think as a league we all will get better at it.”
We know you’ve been waiting for this one…
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— Big Ten Conference (@bigten) August 2, 2024
In a sport marred by paranoia over any advantage — perceived or otherwise — will athletic departments be willing to share information about when to travel or how to get in and out of remote college towns?
“I think when it comes to student-athlete health and wellness, everyone is always open to sharing,” Chun said. “If it’s competitive it’s different. Health and wellness drives this league, so we’ll always share information that’s to the betterment of their health and wellness. We’re not going to sacrifice that.”
UCLA football will log the most miles of the 18 Big Ten teams this fall, covering an estimated 22,048 miles, according to Bill Speros of Bookies. Washington is second at 17,522. UCLA quarterback Ethan Garbers, a native of Newport Beach, Calif., said he has never played in snow before. He’s hoping that changes this year. Garbers said DeShaun Foster and the rest of the Bruins’ coaching staff told the players their schedule can help prepare them for life in the NFL. If NFL players aren’t complaining about playing all over the country, why should they?
When reminded that there are no mandatory credit hours or study halls in the NFL, Garbers smiled.
“That’s very true. I’ve graduated now,” Garbers said with a laugh. “I’ll take a couple classes, but nothing too hard.”
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The expanded conference means coast-to-coast flights, which has always been challenging for Penn State football. Penn State reached out to NFL teams, including the Philadelphia Eagles, during the last two years to help determine best practices for coast-to-coast travel. To make the trip to USC in October, the Nittany Lions will drive 100 miles to Harrisburg, Pa., and depart from that airport on a Thursday — one day earlier than usual — for their trip, Penn State athletic director Patrick Kraft said. The Nittany Lions will log 8,602 miles this season, the sixth-most in the conference.
“It’s not the easiest place to get into and it’s not the easiest place to get out of,” James Franklin said of State College. “As a Northeast school, that creates some challenges. I think Rutgers has similar challenges, but they got bigger airport options that we don’t have.”
As one college football head coach joked this summer, Penn State’s true home-field advantage might be that it’s not easy to get to Beaver Stadium. Chun and Washington head coach Jedd Fisch both said they’ve already been on planes that were rerouted from State College to Harrisburg.
“We’re confident we can land a 737 there,” Fisch said. “You’re not jinxing us right now and sending us to Harrisburg, right?”
Like UCLA and Washington have already learned from coaches who have been to State College, the runway at the local State College Regional Airport, located 4 miles from Beaver Stadium, isn’t suitable for certain aircraft types like the Boeing 737-800, 737-900 and 757-300. While these planes take off and land in State College, they can’t do so without making certain concessions. Flights going across the country must stop and refuel, or football teams will need to take a smaller plane if they aim to travel nonstop. This means they will either have to take two planes to land in State College or take one larger plane, fly to Harrisburg and drive 100 miles to State College.
Washington is considering bringing two planes for the 5 1/2-hour trip to land in State College, but Chun recognized that each week will present different challenges. The Huskies are anticipating leaving a day before if the Penn State game will be played at night and two days before if the game is played in the afternoon. The Huskies play at Rutgers on a Friday night, so they’ll have to adjust accordingly for that too, Chun said. When they play at Iowa, should the game be in the daytime, they’d leave two days early, Fisch said.
“I coached in the NFL for 14 years, and I coached in L.A., and I coached on the East Coast,” said Fisch. “When we hired our head athletic trainer who was in the NFL for 23 years, he was the head trainer for the Cardinals for 15 years so he’s lived through that travel. … You’re never really 100 percent sure. I could give you stories of times that we left the day before and won by 30 and times we left two days before and lost by 30 and vice versa. The greatest saying is how do you win on the road? You bring a good team. That’s the key, not what time you get there.”
(Photo: Matthew O’Haren / USA Today)
Audrey Snyder has covered Penn State since 2012 for various outlets, including The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, The Patriot-News and DKPittsburghSports. Snyder is an active member of the Association for Women in Sports Media (AWSM) and is the professional adviser for Penn State’s student chapter. Follow Audrey on Twitter @audsnyder4
