A lot of Penn State fans dressed up as empty seats on Halloween at Beaver Stadium

Three weeks ago, Penn State hosted USC for the first White Out game in the newly renovated Beaver Stadium; the program set a new attendance record, as 114,419 packed in to see the Trojans beat the Nittany Lions 31-23. 

That was the third loss of a four-game losing streak Penn State is currently riding as it hosts Purdue in Week 9, a losing streak that has zapped all the excitement from the start of the Matt Campbell era. Ahead of the 4:15 p.m. ET kickoff on Saturday, tickets were selling for less than $10 on the secondary market, and yet it still doesn’t appear that the stadium got anywhere near full. 

There are plenty of Halloween costumes throughout Beaver Stadium on Saturday, but the most common one seems to be an empty seat. 

Now, of course, it is Halloween, so there are plenty of other things to do. Still, it’s hard to imagine that if the team were playing well and were in the mix of the race for the College Football Playoff, that the stadium would be so far from full. 

Penn State fans aren’t hiding their frustration with the program

Penn State's announced attendance for the game was 102,041. Frankly, that's hard to believe. That's not what the pictures and videos coming out of the game look like, or what the stadium sounds like.

Much of the fanbase is willing to give Campbell something of a mulligan in Year 1. He was hired late after a messy coaching search as athletic director Pat Kraft publicly whiffed in his pursuit of BYU head coach Kalani Sitake. That delayed arrival left him with only remnants of a recruiting class and little time to do anything other than import his Iowa State roster to Happy Valley, bringing 24 former Cyclones over. 

They aren’t, however, extending the same patience to the man who put Campbell in that situation. Kraft not only took a big swing on the coaching carousel after firing James Franklin, which in and of itself was a bold decision a year removed from a CFP semifinal appearance; he also spearheaded the $700 million renovations on Beaver Stadium. 

Those renovations expanded the stadium’s capacity slightly, but also altered views in the higher levels in favor of adding premium seating options to maximize the revenue-generating capabilities of the stadium. With that, in many cases, views are worse, and tickets are more expensive. 

Maybe that’s just the reality of college football in 2026. But you can forgive longtime fans for feeling like it’s a breach of their trust, and when it coincides with one of the worst starts to a season in years, maybe even including 2025, you can also forgive them for not showing up.

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