Opinion: Penn State’s Blue White Game Decisions are Perplexing

Penn State announced on Wednesday that there will be an annual Blue-White Spring football scrimmage on April 17, but that it will be unlike any spring game in the program’s history.

This announcement should have been a feel-good moment for Penn State fans and students. It signified a return towards normal life, as the Covid-19 pandemic has now been raging for over a year now.

Unlike past years, the Blue/White game will be more of a practice than a scrimmage.

That excitement was soon extinguished however, as the university dropped the guidelines for the game:

The practice will not be televised, the media won’t be allowed in, and the only fans, outside of players’ families, will be freshmen students.

Huh?

The practice not being televised is somewhat confusing. Every time the scrimmage occurred under coach James Franklin’s tenure, it was televised. In those instances, the game was open to the public with free admission, now the one time it will not be open to the public, it won’t be televised either.

Now, if this decision came from Franklin and new offensive coordinator Mike Yurcich, in order to protect the new scheme from future opponents, I can get behind that and would have no problem with the event not being televised or opened to the media.

The bigger issue lies within who is allowed to attend the practice.

Why they decided to pick freshmen, I really don’t know. University President Eric Barron  had this to say on that decision:

"Because of the pandemic, these students have missed out on this special tradition of cheering on the Nittany Lions, and we hope this will be a memorable way for them to gather together and celebrate the final practice of the Spring."

Yes, that’s true, they did miss out on this opportunity, but so did every other student.

The reality is, this year’s freshmen class still has three years remaining on campus. That’s three more football seasons and three more Blue/White games.

The priority should have gone to seniors and other upper classmen. Seniors missed out on a chance to attend a Penn State football game as a student for the last time this past Fall. With last year’s Blue/White game being cancelled, many other students never got the opportunity to experience that either.

With all of the challenges that occurred in the past year, wouldn’t it be more appropriate to give seniors a proper send off by allowing them to  experience Penn State football one last time together?

That memory, in my opinion, would far out weigh the one freshmen will have from attending the scrimmage.

It would be a good “thank you” to the seniors for their hard work in allowing this school year to happen and tribute to them for being able to graduate despite some of the toughest challenges any student could have imagined facing for the past year.

In surfing the web and talking to friends over the past few hours, I’ve noticed a lot of anger with this decision. It wasn’t all that long ago that the Penn State freshmen made national news for a large gathering they had on campus during their first week at Penn State.

Many critics noted that actions like that could have greatly jeopardized the return of Penn State football later that Fall, yet they are the ones being rewarded here. I’ve seen a lot of anger on social media from this angle in particular.

If the goal is to get these freshmen familiar with game day procedures and traditions at Beaver Stadium, there’s other ways to do so.

Host a watch party for the opening game of the 2021 season at Beaver Stadium, it is an away game. Invite sophomores, this year’s freshmen class, and the 2021 freshmen.  I think they are far more likely to remember what to do for the Ball State game the following week if they did the same things a week ago, rather than almost five months before the first regular season home game kicks off.

Another solution could be just making available 10,000 tickets or so for the practice and make it a first come, first serve. This way you are not punishing students based off of their grade, but rather their interest in actually attending the practice. That way, the kids who truly want to be there, will be.

I, myself, do not graduate this semester, but it is my last Spring on campus. I would have liked another chance in Beaver Stadium with many of my friends who will be moving on after the end of the semester.

The decision as to why they picked just freshmen is perplexing in the least.