The jump to the Big Ten is significant for Matt Campbell and the former Iowa State players who followed him from Ames to Happy Valley. However, they have the good fortune of breaking into the league with the most favorable schedule, playing four of the bottom five teams by Big Ten Championship odds and avoiding the league’s three favorites: Indiana, Ohio State, and Oregon.
With unbalanced scheduling in an 18-team league, sometimes programs are going to get lucky, and Penn State absolutely did this year. While the greater benefit is a potential path to the Big Ten Championship Game and the College Football Playoff, the schedule also made things easy for the program to decide its White Out Game, which was officially announced on Tuesday.
The 2026 Penn State White Out will take place on Saturday, October 10, when the preseason No. 18 Nittany Lions host preseason No. 14 USC. Kickoff will be at 7:30 p.m. ET.
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— Penn State Football (@PennStateFball) August 25, 2026
Oct. 10 vs. USC#WeAre | https://t.co/UyJCbm7i6X pic.twitter.com/pllX6p6L9T
With Penn State’s soft schedule, Matt Campbell has to beat USC
The only hold-up in setting the official White Out date was with the TV partners. The White Out has to be in primetime, so if FOX nabbed the Penn State/USC game for Big Noon, the White Out would have to move. However, there aren’t any good options because the schedule is so soft.
Penn State is playing three non-Power Conference games to open the year with Marshall, Temple (on the road), and Buffalo. Then, other than USC, it hosts Wisconsin in Week 4, Purdue in Week 9, Minnesota in Week 11, and Rutgers in Week 12. That’s not exactly a gauntlet, and while the favorable draw opens up the path to the CFP, it also eliminates the margin for error.
Other than USC, Penn State’s two other ranked opponents in the preseason AP Top 25 are No. 16 Michigan and No. 17 Washington. Both of those games occur on the road. That makes beating USC, with a major home-field advantage, paramount for Campbell.
Even at 10-2, Penn State will be hard-pressed to nab an at-large bid into the College Football Playoff. It likely needs to win two of those three games and hold serve across the rest of the slate.
USC’s Big Ten gauntlet makes Week 6 a must-win for Lincoln Riley
USC has the opposite problem from Penn State. Even with Notre Dame off its schedule this year, the Trojans have a brutal draw, playing all three of Indiana, Ohio State, and Oregon, along with matchups against Washington and Penn State. 9-3 USC would probably have a better case as an at-large than a 10-2 Penn State, depending, of course, on the head-to-head matchup.
The Trojans will be coming into Happy Valley after hosting Oregon and Washington in back-to-back weeks. Regardless, it’s a big game for both sides, but if USC already has two losses, the Nittany Lions will have to face a desperate bunch of Trojans on that Saturday night.
For the Big Ten to get four at-large teams, presumably one of the four second-tier contenders- USC, Michigan, Washington, and Penn State- will need to jump up and grab it, so every game between those teams is massive. Considering the schedule disparity, however, this might be the biggest.
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