James Franklin unveils Penn State football plan for Blue-White Game

Penn State’s annual Blue-White spring football game will take place on April 26th at 2 p.m. at Beaver Stadium.The game will be shorter than usual, potentially with shorter quarters and no halftime.The game will take place amidst ongoing renovations to Beaver Stadium, but parking and tailgating details are not yet available.

This Penn State football Blue-White Game will carry on next month, much of it as usual, in the active construction zone now known as West Shore Home Field at Beaver Stadium.

The big caveats: The scrimmage that signifies the end of spring practice will just be a bit shorter this time, coach James Franklin said on Tuesday, to kick off spring practice workouts.

And it will not be televised, he said.

The Blue-White Game will start at 2 p.m. on April 26.

“One of the things that I don’t think we’ll do is a halftime, because there’s been years where we’ll have 75,000 people out there, (they) go to half time for 20 minutes, and the parking lot (and tailgating) becomes more attractive than the second half.

“So, probably, we’ll condense it down a little bit, maybe a little bit shorter quarters, maybe no half time,” Franklin said.

The annual free scrimmage expects to feature a mixture of “live” and no-tackling periods, in part, to better protect the team’s large contingent of experienced players from injury, Franklin said.

However, “I want (the game) to be enough … that our fans feel like they, ‘Hey, I got a pretty good feel and idea what Penn State football is going to look like.'”

Franklin also noted how the scrimmage can help new defensive leader Jim Knowles − who Penn State made the highest-paid assistant in college football history back in January. He’ll be calling Nittany Lion plays for the first time in Beaver Stadium.

“Those things are important to get those reps and for him to evaluate our staff and for him to evaluate our roster. All 15 of those (spring practices) are like gold.”

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There are still no parking, tailgating or fan-entrance details available for the game. It will be played, of course, in the midst of the $700 million stadium renovation project, which began in earnest last December. Work will stop, only, during the upcoming two seasons.

The project is expected to be completed in time for the 2027 season.

Earlier this month the university entered into a “naming rights” partnership with West Shore Home, a Pennsylvania home remodeling company − a $50 million deal that will run through 2039 and will help finance the Beaver Stadium renovation project underway.

Frank Bodani covers Penn State football for the York Daily Record and USA Today Network. Contact him at  fbodani@ydr.com and follow him on X, formerly known as Twitter, @YDRPennState.