Penn State Football: reviewing Auburn’s gameday experience and Jordan-Hare Stadium

Penn State Football picked up a comfortable 41-12 win over the Auburn Tigers on their home turf on Saturday afternoon, and as expected, the Penn State fanbase showed out on the road once again.

I was lucky enough to be able to make the trip to Auburn for the marquee non-conference matchup, so here’s my review of the experience.

We stayed in West Point, GA, which was about a 45-minute drive from Auburn, so I can’t really speak on what the experience downtown was like on Friday, but from my understanding, it was quite a scene as the campus was littered with Penn State Football fans.

We tailgated in the intramural lot, and although it was a bit of a walk from the stadium, it was a nice place to tailgate. It was not too crowded, there was plenty of space to play cornhole or throw football, it was easy to get in and out of, and there was plenty of shade from the trees.

One of the only major complaints I have of Auburn’s gameday experience is their lack of restrooms in certain parts of the tailgate lots. Where we were in the intramural lot, the closest bathroom was nearly a 10-minute walk away. We were told that bathroom would open at nine o’clock, but when we went to use it a little after nine, it was still not open.

If tailgating lots are going to open at eight, then the bathrooms should open at that point too.

We ended up having to walk a little further to use some portable toilets.

Overall, the tailgating atmosphere that I witnessed walking around pregame was certainly a good one. There were plenty of great setups all over the place. The folks of Auburn certainly know how to tailgate.

Admittedly, things felt a little congested around the stadium. Jordan-Hare Stadium is right in the middle of campus, surrounded by Auburn’s baseball stadium, basketball arena, and more. So, being that their stadium was more “downtown”, many of the tailgates were crowding the sidewalks.

Imagine if Penn State put a new stadium right in the middle of downtown State College, and tailgaters were forced to park and set up their tailgate wherever there was an open patch of grass.

This “congestion” wasn’t necessarily a bad thing, it was just different and not something I personally was used to as a Penn State Football fan who is used to the stadium being in the middle of a field with big parking lots surrounding it.

We made our way to the visiting team’s entrance to wait for the Nittany Lions to arrive at the stadium, and unfortunately, the busses drove right into the gate and dropped the players off; so they could not walk through a tunnel of fans like at home or like at other road stadiums.

I may have misheard, but I think I overheard one of the security guards tell a fan that it is an SEC rule that they do that. If so, that releases the blame off of Auburn themselves and puts the blame on the Southeastern Conference. I thought it was supposed to mean more down there?

Once all the busses were in the gate, the sea of Penn State Football fans quickly filled the opening of the gate (without going beyond it, of course) to try to get a look at the team getting off the bus. We were ordered to open back up, as another police escort soon came through, this one escorting a van that carried the War Eagle, which was actually cool.

After that, we once again closed off the gate with a sea of humanity to once again try to get a glimpse of the team, but the police and security did not take too kindly to that. Despite the fact we did not go beyond where we were supposed to, apparently we were not allowed to stand there and observe. We were told we had to leave.

It seemed to me that those security guards had never heard of southern hospitality.

The stadium itself is very nice, and we were seated in the very last row of the upper deck, so we had a great view and there was a walkway up top that allowed for plenty of room to stand during the game.

The stadium filled up nicely, and there was plenty of white in the “Orange Out”.

Aside from the win of course, one of the coolest moments of the day was getting the opportunity to experience the War Eagle pregame flight, which is one of the best traditions in the sport.

Early on, the Auburn crowd was admittedly very loud. Not quite Beaver Stadium loud, but pretty dang loud for 87,000+. Although as you can probably guess, that didn’t last too long.

Speaking of the atmosphere, the folks in charge of putting together the pregame videos on the jumbotron at Jordan-Hare were pretty set on trying to downplay the White Out.

There were a number of clips played that tried to downplay the White Out, and truthfully, I don’t recall exactly what most of them said. However, one that stuck out was a video of Joe Burrow saying “this one trumps Penn State” after a win at Jordan-Hare when he was with LSU.

It’s a little sad (and also comical) having to use a video of a quarterback who had just beaten your team, won an SEC title, a National Championship, and a Heisman Trophy for a rival school to try to make your own school’s atmosphere sound better.

Another interesting thing was that early on, they played a lot of highlights from last year’s Penn State-Auburn game. Similar to the clip of Burrow, I thought it was interesting showing highlights of a game that you lost to the team that you’re currently playing.

Overall, the Auburn faithful were nice and welcoming. To my surprise, I didn’t hear any comments about a former Penn State assistant coach.

Throughout the day, plenty of the hometown fans welcomed us to Auburn; and postgame, many thanked us for coming, told us good game, complemented our team, and shook our hands. I can’t imagine many schools in the country that would have better hospitality.

I did, however, hear on a few different occasions an Auburn fan yell “We Are”. Not sure if they were trying to mock us, or thought it was just a way to greet us. Either way, it was a little confusing.

One complaint I do have about the setup of Jordan-Hare Stadium was that there were only two concourses: the one at ground level that leads to tunnels in the middle of the lower bowl, and the one up at the upper deck. Beaver Stadium has another one in between at the top of the first level of seating that is accessible from the ramp.

Once again, this is not that big of a deal, but it was a little annoying when we left the upper deck to go down to field level for the alma mater. We ended up making it down in time, but it would have been much quicker had there been a way to exit the ramp halfway down with either a walkway or another concourse that led to the top of the lower seating bowl.

The overall experience at Auburn was fantastic, and one that I would definitely recommend to any college football fan looking to experience a new stadium and campus. You can tell how much they love their college football down there, which as a diehard fan of the sport myself, is something I really appreciate.

The dominant win for Penn State Football was the cherry on top of an overall great day in Auburn, AL.