Start Scheduling Fun Non-Conference Games Again: An Open Letter To Penn State Football

The schedule for Penn State soccer has taken on a development lately. The workforce nearly at all times begins the season with three consecutive non-conference bouts earlier than starting Big Ten play in late September.

That’s not inherently completely different from the remainder of the game, however it’s notably completely different from the SEC beginning convention play earlier and having each workforce play an FCS program in November for no matter cause.

The idea of a “preseason” for the trials of Big Ten play is wise and what all good applications do, however the best way Penn State is doing it begins to get previous after some time.

This 12 months, the Nittany Lions opened their season with video games in opposition to Marshall, Temple, and Buffalo, who symbolize the Sun Belt, the American Conference, and the MAC, respectively. Those three conferences are thought-about a few of the lower-quality conferences within the FBS. None of these groups entered 2026 with tremendous excessive expectations.

It’d be fantastic if it had been a one-off, nevertheless it’s been a part of a administration development to deliberately schedule “cupcake opponents” to start out every common season, giving the soccer workforce a delicate touchdown and three free wins on the calendar.

From 2025 to 2028, right here’s the record of opponents that Penn State has performed or is scheduled to play in non-conference motion:

• 2025: vs. Nevada (Mountain West), vs. FIU (Conference USA), vs. Villanova (FCS)
• 2026: vs. Marshall (Sun Belt), at Temple (American), vs. Buffalo (MAC)
• 2027: vs. Syracuse (ACC), vs. Maine (FCS), vs. Temple (American)
• 2028: vs. Ball State (MAC), at Syracuse (ACC), vs. UMass (MAC)

There is a Power Four workforce on the schedule, as Penn State scheduled a home-and-home with Syracuse just a few years in the past, however such a matchup solely has intrigue off the decades-old “rivalry” the 2 groups had.

If you rely the pre-2019 steady sequence in opposition to Pitt and the home-and-home with West Virginia in 2023-24, it appeared like Penn State was interested by renewing a few of these old-school rivalries.

Here’s the factor, although. These matchups, significantly in opposition to Syracuse and Temple, as headliners for each non-conference slate, don’t work in fashionable faculty soccer. When you schedule these video games to get a free win, followers lose curiosity.

The sport in opposition to Buffalo was the least-attended non-COVID Penn State home game since 2019, a late November sport in opposition to Rutgers.

The pupil part is half full by the second-half kickoff. There’s no curiosity or intrigue, and when the one expectation is to pummel the opponent by a number of touchdowns, something much less is handled as a failure.

Until just lately, Penn State routinely scheduled a Power Four workforce in non-conference play, with matchups starting from regional rivalries to intriguing video games in opposition to opponents in unlikely areas. At one time limit, they’d a slate that appeared like this from 2018 to 2025:

• 2018: at Pitt
• 2019: vs. Pitt
• 2020: at Virginia Tech
• 2021: vs. Auburn
• 2022: at Auburn
• 2023: vs. West Virginia
• 2024: at West Virginia
• 2025: vs. Virginia Tech

This is an eight-year stretch of charming opponents, and whereas six of them nonetheless occurred, the Virginia Tech home-and-home was canceled after COVID-19 worn out the primary leg. Then, as a substitute of discovering somebody new to take the Hokies’ place, Franklin adopted a brand new technique: no extra competitors, solely cupcakes.

The 2025-28 stretch that we now have has been set in stone for a number of years. It was by design to play, basically, a preseason to maintain individuals wholesome.

“It’s a little bit of strategy, and it’s a little bit of kind of the predicament we’re in,” Franklin mentioned final season when requested about non-conference scheduling. “For us, we want to put ourselves in the best position to get into conference play as healthy and as confident as we possibly can be to make a run in conference play.”

Franklin has already labored his magic at Virginia Tech to schedule extra of those simpler opponents. He canceled the workforce’s sport in opposition to Group of Six powerhouse James Madison for 2026 whereas backing out of future commitments with Liberty, one other standard Group of Six contender, and South Carolina within the SEC.

He additionally eliminated two of the 4 scheduled conferences with Maryland down the street.

It’s going to be onerous for Matt Campbell to tear up the 2027 and 2028 schedules due to the shut proximity and the possible buyout scenario, significantly with the purchase video games in opposition to lesser opponents, however he can get to work filling the 2029 and 2030 non-conference slates with one thing daring and thrilling. Dozens of different colleges have already begun scheduling into the 2030s.

If the College Football Playoff is inevitably going to develop even additional, why not simply designate one sport a 12 months to problem ourselves with a nationally-covered sport?

We see Michigan and Ohio State scheduling a few of the beasts within the SEC; why not name up Lane Kiffin and have a home-and-home with LSU to see who actually has the very best house atmosphere?

Why not take journeys to chill new locations? Seeing the Nittany Lions play at Jordan-Hare Stadium in 2022 was superior, and there’s an entire new world to expertise whenever you open your horizons to competing with different Power Four colleges.

I’m not even against the regional rivalry sequence. The banter surrounding the West Virginia video games was enjoyable, even when the matchups had been fairly lopsided. The animosity within the hate triangle between Penn State, West Virginia, and Pitt nonetheless exists, so why not attempt to play them extra?

I don’t even care that a lot in regards to the historical past of a bygone period with Pitt; it’s simply one thing enjoyable you are able to do whenever you don’t have any higher choices.

Hell, go play Notre Dame. We’ve seen all these previous Joe Paterno-era rivals during the last decade, however we are able to’t appear to lace them up with the Fighting Irish, who had been certainly one of Penn State’s large rivals when it got here to regional supremacy for a number of a long time.

The CFP Semifinal two years in the past was like a relic of a bygone period, with two rabid fanbases that mirror one another in loads of methods.

Look, I can respect a tune-up sport on a sleepy Saturday. Sometimes, I simply wish to see the blue and white roll to a win with out worrying about something. It makes for a peaceable day and offers alumni low cost alternatives to see their alma mater, given how costly typical video games can get, however there’s no cause you want three of them yearly.

All I’m asking is for one enjoyable non-conference sport yearly. Fun isn’t visiting the Kibble Dome or Lincoln Financial Field. Fun is uncharted waters, testing yourselves, or perhaps rekindling some previous hatred from 50 years in the past.