Penn State announces annual 'White Out' planned vs. Michigan on October 21st

Submitted by SpikeFan2016 on

No surprises here, confirming what we all were expecting.

 

Michigan is 2-2 in White Out games at Beaver Stadium, with victories in 2006 and 2015 and losses in 2010 and 2013. Overall, Michigan owns a 6-4 record at Penn State, and a 13-7 record in the overall series. 

 

For all intents and purposes, it seems as though Penn State will perptually use their White Outs on Ohio State in even numbered years and Michigan in odd numbered years. Penn State has not hosted a team other than Michigan or Ohio State for the White Out since 2011, vs. Alabama. (However, in 2011 neither Michigan or Ohio State traveled to Happy Valley. You have to go all the way back to 2009 for a time when PSU selected another team INSTEAD of UM/OSU (when they picked Iowa over Ohio State)). 

 

Including this upcoming season, Michigan will have played in more White Outs than any other team. By team:

  • Michigan: 5 (including 2017)
  • Ohio State: 4 (Buckeyes also have a 2-2 record in these games)
  • Purdue, Illinois, Iowa, Notre Dame and Alabama: 1

 

https://twitter.com/PennStateFball/status/854367876777730048?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Etweet

 

Let's spoil the White Out twice in a row; Go Blue!

Sam1863

April 18th, 2017 at 1:01 PM ^

White is associated with purity, virginity, innocence, light, goodness, safety, illumination, understanding, cleanliness, faith, spirituality, humility, sincerity, protection, and perfection.

They're gonna have to find another color. This one has a little too much irony.

Baldbill

April 18th, 2017 at 3:17 PM ^

That "poor stunt man" is Bob Wall, he worked on 3 movies with Bruce Lee. 

Wall is a 9th degree black belt under Chuck Norris, and was an accomplished martial artist in his own right.

In that particular scene, he was off the mark that Bruce had told him to be on, only slightly, he didn't realize how powerful Bruce was. He got a couple of broken ribs from that mistake.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Wall

 

MichiganTeacher

April 18th, 2017 at 5:47 PM ^

Agree that this is going to be a very tough game for us, especially considering the circumstances.

I'm not sold on PSU being all that good this year, though. They have a schedule that sets up nicely for them, especially with that week off before they play us, but I think last year's 11-3 is really going to prove to be an anomaly for them.

Also I trust that with Franklin the bye week will be a negative rather than a positive. I mean, in 14 and 15, they had a bye week in front of us, and they lost both of those. To be fair, in 2016 they had the bye week in front of OSU and then managed to get extremely lucky to win that game. 

My other question is how do they get such excellent placement of bye weeks?

NittanyFan

April 18th, 2017 at 5:59 PM ^

The B1G announced the 2016 & 2017 conference schedules in July 2013.  Link below.

http://www.bigten.org/sports/m-footbl/spec-rel/071113aab.html

PSU @ Michigan was originally scheduled for October 15, until both schools mutually agreed to move things up.  PSU then got a bye before the OSU game.

Similarly for 2017, PSU @ Iowa was originally scheduled for October 14.  Another case of a game re-scheduled by mutual agreement.  Link below.

http://www.mcall.com/sports/college/psu/nittany-lines/mc-penn-state-foo…

Pepto Bismol

April 18th, 2017 at 1:32 PM ^

Dangerous game. 

We all got a good "LOL" out of Field Goal Franklin and last year's beatdown, but I expect this will be way different. 

- First, they had no LBs last year. Either 2 or 3 were out to begin with and then one of the backups got random-ejected for "targeting" in the first half.  They were peeling redshirts off guys just to plug in warm bodies.  You might shrug that off, but let's start Furbush, Wroblewski and Wangler at PSU this year, and then toss Furbush for targeting and see how that works out for us.

- They totally revamped their offense to spread last year.  We made them look bad in week 4, but they didn't lose again until the Rose Bowl where they still put up 49 points.  In fact, after squeaking out just 10 points against Michigan, PSU scored 38 or more in 8 of their last 10 games including MSU, Wisconsin, Iowa and USC.  Their offense was infinitely better the 2nd half of the year than what we saw.

- They were young as hell last year.  While Michigan will likely play a bunch of young guys in 2017 while trying to overcome dead recruiting from the end of the Hoke era (Wait until 2018!!!), PSU already did that last year.  They were crazy young because of the (albeit brief) NCAA sanctions from the Sandusky ordeal.  They bring back 18 guys from last year's B1G Championship team, I think?  There will be no learning curve. 

- Night games are bad.  PSU beat OSU in a game they probably should've lost in last year's White Out, much like Iowa's win against Michigan.  Road games are hard.  Road night games are harder-er.  We all know this. 

- We embarrassed them last year.  Everybody hates Michigan.  Everybody hates Harbaugh.  Our young team will walk in there with a huge target on their back.

 

Safe to say I'm afraid of this game.

 

 

In reply to by Pepto Bismol

Arlo Pear

April 18th, 2017 at 3:04 PM ^

I agree PSU got better, however I don't think it was the leaps and bounds most claim. They scored over 30 points in the 3 games prior to Michigan. Then after getting crushed went back to scoring over 30 against everyone besides OSU(24) and Minnesota(29). Maybe when they faced a good defense they were not good.

Pepto Bismol

April 18th, 2017 at 4:11 PM ^

PSU's offense wasn't good before or during Michigan, and wasn't against Minnesota either.  They had a good game against Maryland when DJ Durkin unleashed his "2015 OSU" spread defense, and went into their bye week. 

Then they beat OSU in the White Out in a semi-miracle and they took off.

Common opponents after that?

Iowa - They scored 41, we scored 13

Indiana - They scored 45, we scored 20*  (*O'Korn+snow)

Rutgers - They scored 39, we scored 78

MSU - They scored 45, we scored 32

Wisconsin - They scored 38, we scored 14

Even with our ridiculous 78 points against Rutgers, they were still 10 points per game better than us offensively against these common teams (and they also scored a TD more than we did against OSU)

The only other 2nd half teams they played that we didn't were Purdue and USC in the Rose.  Penn State put up 62 and 49 respectively.

 

I'm not trying to celebrate PSU, but I honestly don't understand how anybody can look at that and dismiss it.  I get that we're Michigan fans and want to feel warm and fuzzy that we'll go 15-0 this year (and every year after).  But that "arm punt" offense lit up everyone they played in the 2nd half of '16 and they bring back almost everybody.

Arlo Pear

April 18th, 2017 at 4:31 PM ^

Everyone is back accept the guy he threw most of the arm punts to, Godwin. The reason they have been stomped by Michigan back to back years is they've had no plan after Barkley is stuffed and the arm punt doesn't work. I still don't believe that OL can block Michigan's top front 4. If they can do that it will be a game. We will see.

Pepto Bismol

April 18th, 2017 at 5:01 PM ^

They have recruited receiver well.  One of those guys has to be able to win those one-on-one matchups the way Godwin did.  I agree. 

Back-to-Back stompings aren't related.  The 2015 PSU offense with Hackenberg was an abomonation.  I'll give you last year.  I think it's a pretty big assumption though to think our secondary this year will be at the level it was last year.  We're replacing an all-Senior secondary with all Sophomores with a combined 0 starts - in the entire secondary. 

We will see.

 

In reply to by Pepto Bismol

OwenGoBlue

April 18th, 2017 at 3:29 PM ^

I know as Michigan fans we're supposed to have trepidation about all things, but I'm pretty confident in this game.

Obviously it's football so weird stuff can happen (like PSU's absurd win over OSU last year), but I'm not sold on their QB minus Godwin or their defense. Plus Don Brown is a card carrying spread murderer so the easy stuff they rely on won't be there for the second year in a row.

In reply to by Pepto Bismol

war-dawg69

April 18th, 2017 at 4:05 PM ^

Yep!. All those linebackers were two way players and that is why their offense couldn't do jackshit against our defense. All those breakdowns i just watched from their o-line was because they had linebackers out. Penn State was very lucky they got past a weak Minnesota team at home. If they didn't squeek that one out. I really don't know if you should draw more attention to a game where you got smoked by 39 points by said team. Michigan will be livin in their backfield and that is a given because penn states o-line is just not that good. I really do not see why this team is thought of as being good. They lost their best receiver. I think their best db is injured and out for the year. They lost the d-end who terrorized barett all game. They have a running Qb who throws the ball up for grabs and a good running back who will be neutralized. I'm taking Michigan in this game. I think Penn State is weaker this year.