Penn State football announces that home playoff game will be a White Out. Here’s what we know

About an hour after it became official that Penn State would host a College Football Playoff game, the university’s athletic department announced it would be a White Out.

The Nittany Lions will host the White Out playoff game against the SMU Mustangs on noon Dec. 21 (Saturday). It’s not a night game — which might disappoint some fans — but it is also December in the middle of Pennsylvania winter, so an early kickoff shouldn’t be looked upon as all bad.

While the White Out announcement wasn’t entirely expected Sunday, it also wasn’t a surprise. The annual spectacle, regarded as one of the greatest in all of college football, is usually organized once a year by the athletic department — but Penn State fans tend to wear all white anyway during the program’s biggest games. (The Nov. 2 game against Ohio State was technically not a White Out, although it basically looked like one.) So why not make it official?

This is Penn State’s first-ever berth in the College Football Playoff, and it’s the first year that teams are able to host games in the playoff’s first round. Penn State actually had to winterize the stadium prior to this season, just to prepare for the possibility of hosting a December game, by insulating pipes and performing other maintenance.

And countless analysts and experts have often pointed to Penn State’s intimidating White Out atmosphere as one of the country’s best — even those who played for Ohio State.

“We go to a lot of big games, a lot of big settings. There’s nothing like the White Out in Happy Valley,” ESPN analyst and former Buckeyes QB Kirk Herbstreit once said.

It will be the Nittany Lions’ first-ever White Out in December. Preliminary forecasts from AccuWeather aren’t yet calling for snow — temperatures are estimated to be in the high-30s — but it’s certainly possible that could change in the next two weeks.

Penn State’s first playoff game is gearing up to a memorable one. Penn State is an 8-point favorite to beat SMU, according to DraftKings.