When it comes to Penn State football and Beaver Stadium, the Nittany Lions will tell you that they sell out every single game and they pride themselves on their "White Out.''
Truth be told, they draw very well, and they did when James Franklin was their head coach. It was and is one of the most difficult college football venues to play in as a visiting team. After Penn State suffered a couple of losses last season in the first half of the season, the fanbase was fed up with Franklin, and he ended up getting fired.
Athletic director Pat Kraft ended up hiring Iowa State head coach Matt Campbell as their next coach, and Penn State fans thought that they were ready to take off under Campbell. It hasn't worked out that way, and on Saturday, when they hosted Purdue in a Big Ten game, a once-proud program that thumps its chest on its attendance numbers and sellouts hit rock bottom
Penn State embarrassingly announces a sellout against Purdue in empty Beaver Stadium
Moments before the 4:15 kickoff against Purdue, multiple reporters were posting pictures on social media of the lack of bodies in seats at Beaver Stadium.
The 4:15 pm kick on Halloween for Penn State, Purdue. Folks still filing in but I’ve never seen this place like this for a non spring game (I started covering PSU in 2010) pic.twitter.com/zrwlRQdlJB
— Audrey Snyder (@audsnyder4) October 31, 2026
Let's not forget it was Halloween. That is a lot of fans dressed up as seats for Halloween, no? That couldn't be right before kickoff. No way. Penn State fans, who spent months trolling Virginia Tech fans for hiring Franklin and dumping on the fanbase got creative with their costumes. How cute.
If that wasn't bad enough, Penn State outdid themselves when they announced an attendance of over 100,000 fans, according to Sean Fritz of On3. No, seriously, they did.
Today's announced attendance at Penn State: 102,041.
— Sean Fitz (@SeanFitzOn3) October 31, 2026
OK.
Sitting at 3-4, entering the game and winless at 0-4 in the Big Ten, the Matt Campbell era wasn't going as planned early on in State College. To compound matters, Franklin is 6-2 at Virginia Tech and enjoying his bye week scouting SMU for Friday night's game in Dallas.
Penn State apologists will say the lack of fans at the game was because of Halloween. Yeah, ok. The same fans who were trolling Virginia Tech and James Franklin are the same ones who are already calling for Campbell to be fired. That's right, the Matt Campbell honeymoon is already over at Penn State after just seven games.
Campbell was set up, schedule-wise, to have a lot of success this season. Nittany Lions have visions of the College Football Playoff this year. Truth be told, maybe they should have, with that schedule. Instead, they are just 4-4 after a win over the Boilermakers.
Say what you will about Virginia Tech, but one thing is clear: no matter how bad things are, they show up and support the Hokies. The easiest example was last season: after Brent Pry was fired, Virginia Tech fans showed up and supported Phili Montgomery, the coaching staff, and the players.
Maybe it was time for James Franklin and Penn State to part ways, but what the first eight games this season have shown is that Franklin was the main problem in State College. Was he part of it? Maybe, but he wasn't solely responsible. However, announcing an attendance of over 100,00 fans when not even half of that was in the stadium is rather embarrassing.
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