STATE COLLEGE, Pa. — Wide receiver Chase Sowell has looked at various iconic moments in Beaver Stadium history on YouTube to try and get a handle on what Saturday might look and feel like.

“People keep telling me like oh you’ll see this or you’ll see that, but I don’t think you can put it into words,” said Sowell, who transferred from Iowa State. “I’m excited to see it with my own eyes.”

Penn State opens the season against Marshall at 3:30 p.m. Saturday and for Matt Campbell and the bulk of this roster it’ll be their first time playing a game in front of the home crowd. It’s a new era and a fresh start for a program that’s been overhauled since January.

“Obviously for all of us this is new,” Campbell said this week. “New staff, new players, new environment so that’s all what I’m looking forward to seeing. How do we handle the challenges? … How do we handle the crowd? How do we handle our own ego, our own leadership? What do all those things look like from coaches and players?”

Who and what to keep an eye on:

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STATE COLLEGE, Pa. — Behind a heavy wooden door with Joe Paterno’s nameplate on it is an office that looks like it’s from another era.

A lamp commemorating the 1982 national championship sits on the former head coach’s desk while Paterno’s signature black Nike sneakers are across the room in a display case. There’s a binder full of old plays on a coffee table and various family photos and trinkets from Paterno’s career scattered throughout his re-created office.

Penn State’s All-Sports Museum now includes a permanent museum experience in which the past 100 years of Penn State football are recognized and honored. Beyond the section with Paterno’s desk and a look back at his coaching career is a wall honoring all the team’s previous captains, trophies from various games as well as football helmets from different eras.

No, the bronze Paterno statue, which was removed in 2012 as part of fallout from the Jerry Sandusky child sex abuse scandal, is not part of the museum. The creation of this space however is Penn State’s first public attempt since Paterno’s passing in 2012 to try and acknowledge the coach’s career in a permanent capacity.

The space will open to the public Thursday morning after Penn State athletics announced this week that it previously received an anonymous gift from a donor to create and name the Paterno Family Football Experience Room. Guests with tickets to Penn State football games will be able to visit the area during the second and third quarters of home games, starting this weekend.

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STATE COLLEGE, Pa. — Step inside the meeting room with Penn State offensive coordinator Taylor Mouser and one is bound to learn something.

On Fridays, meetings with the tight ends start with a heavy dose of music trivia. It’s 10 or 20 songs, depending on the week, and Mouser plays his selections while the players try to guess the song, or the song and artist — for double points. He might go from 90s hits to country music and anything and everything in between. After the passing of Dolly Parton, the tight ends heard “Islands in the Stream” all week.

“He knows every song,” tight end Gabe Burkle said with a laugh. Burkle spent his entire collegiate career with Mouser. “There’s a lot of variety out there. He likes to have fun. It’s a great way to start the meetings, kind of get the energy going, get everyone excited. He’s one of a kind.”

There’s a time and place when Penn State’s 35-year-old offensive coordinator needs to lay into his players and many times when he pulls back. Matt Campbell smiles and says yes, Mouser, in his third year as an offensive coordinator, is indeed different than a lot of coaches in the industry.

“He’s fun,” Campbell said. “He likes to play hockey and do different things and I love that about Mouse. But who Mouse is, how he loves football, how he prepares, how he sees winning and losing, how he treats the players in the program, there’s a great alignment from myself, Coach (D’Anton) Lynn, all of us on that value system.”

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STATE COLLEGE, Pa. — After Rocco Becht’s sophomore season at Wiregrass Ranch High School in Wesley Chapel, Florida, the quarterback asked his dad a question that Anthony Becht hoped to hear for years.

“He pulled me aside and he was like Dad, what does it take? I want to take the next step,” Anthony Becht recalled. “Man, it was like the best day of my life! Now, I’m like OK, we really get to dive deep on this thing.”

Anthony Becht starred as a tight end at West Virginia and was selected in the first round of the 2000 NFL Draft by the New York Jets. During his 11 seasons in the NFL, he saw fathers who pushed the sport on their son. He didn’t want Rocco to feel pressured to play football. Sure, his son grew up in locker rooms and dad helped coach flag football, but once Rocco gave Anthony the go-ahead to help him chase his quarterbacking dream, neither father nor son has looked back.

“To be able to be here right now at of the most prestigious and historic programs in college football, I’m super blessed,” Rocco said this week. “This wasn’t on my agenda. Now that I am here, I’m super excited to be a part of it.”

Rocco will lead Penn State out of the tunnel Saturday afternoon in Beaver Stadium to begin his final collegiate season and his first at Penn State. The start of the Matt Campbell era comes with one final go-around from the quarterback who this head coach believed in when few others around the country saw the potential. Yes, Rocco needed to have the arm and the skills to get to this point, but Campbell and his then Iowa State staff always saw something in the player whose personality seems to pull teammates in.

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STATE COLLEGE, Pa. — Matt Campbell knows that at some point on Saturday there’s going to be a moment when the TV cameras catch him yelling and screaming at something, anything.

Maybe he’ll be outwardly emotional making his Beaver Stadium debut or perhaps he’ll just be fired up about whatever is on his mind.

“As a former defensive lineman, that doesn’t ever leave you,” Campbell Tuesday at his weekly news conference. “Sometimes, I wear my emotions on my sleeve — which is not my greatest quality — so I’ll apologize for that early, but the reality is when you love the sport and you love to watch your guys and you see how much they put into these moments, I’m probably more excited for that, to be able to watch our football team grow forward.”

Campbell, offensive coordinator Taylor Mouser, quarterback Rocco Becht, offensive lineman Trevor Buhr and linebacker Tony Rojas all met with the media on Tuesday. Here’s what stuck with me:

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STATE COLLEGE, Pa. — Penn State opens the season Saturday at 3:30 p.m. against Marshall in Beaver Stadium. What do I think the Nittany Lions’ depth chart looks like for Matt Campbell’s first game?

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Let’s dive in!

Quarterback

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Hi all!

If you’re receiving this note you’re an Elite (or Founding Member) subscriber at Inside The Lions! Thank you so much for helping power this operation!!

Part of this top tier includes our monthly virtual Q&As. I figured this would be a great week to hop on Google Meet with you all and answer whatever questions you may have as Penn State football starts the Matt Campbell era! We’ve seen a lot this preseason — and also had more interview access than ever before. It’s been a lot of fun.

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STATE COLLEGE, Pa. — As each participant approached the line of scrimmage, Matt Campbell’s smile said everything you needed to know about one of his favorite events of the year.

On Friday night, Penn State’s head coach sure looked like a proud dad as he knelt beside kids and took them by the hand before they broke the huddle together under the lights in Beaver Stadium.

“This world’s about giving back and making a difference,” Campbell said. “To be able to do that tonight, and be able to be with so many great families and young people that may never get the opportunity to play the game of football, it’s a special opportunity for us.”

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This was Victory Day, an event Campbell started during his second season at Toledo and one he took with him to Iowa State and now Penn State. Each participant, ranging in age from 4 to 22 and traveling from various parts of Pennsylvania and New Jersey, all had a chance to go through drills and score a touchdown in Beaver Stadium.

“This is part of Coach Campbell and who he is,” said quarterback Rocco Becht. “The way he gives back and the way that he cares for others. He puts the community, the fans and us first. That’s just the person he is.”

The idea for the event came from a coaching clinic Campbell attended years ago where a high school football coach explained what he was doing with his team. Campbell loved it and wanted to bring the concept to college football.

“We talk a lot in our program right now about perspective, and I think it’s easy in our sport right now to lose perspective of what our responsibility is, and the victories are what you see out here today,” Campbell said. “Giving back, using your platform to make a difference in other people’s lives, to see those smiles, see these parents, it just puts everything in perspective before the chaos of a football season comes into play.”

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STATE COLLEGE, Pa. — There was a moment at Ikaika Malloe’s home a few years ago when UCLA’s then defensive coordinator pulled Siale Taupaki aside.

The group of veteran defensive linemen talked about what it would take to make it to the NFL. Unlike his teammates, Taupaki didn’t think of himself as someone who could play on Sundays. A first-generation American who didn’t know what a football scholarship was and what it entailed until he started being offered them at 17, wasn’t sure if he still wanted to play college football let alone if he was good enough for the NFL.

“I pulled him aside and I said one of these days you’re gonna have to have more confidence in yourself than me like I can’t have the expectations for you,” Malloe told Inside The Lions. “He asked me like do you think I can make it? I said I know for sure you can make it, but it’s not up to me. It’s for you.”

This week, seated in Penn State’s football building, Taupaki recalled Malloe’s words as if he heard them yesterday. Neither player nor coach expected to be here, now across the country and reunited at Penn State where Taupaki, 25, is in his 8^th and final season of college eligibility. Malloe, who Taupaki affectionally calls “Pops,” is the Nittany Lions’ defensive line coach. Former UCLA defensive tackle Keanu Williams, a 6th-year player who was at Malloe’s house that night in California when it all finally clicked for Taupaki and is one of his close friends, is here too. They’re all reunited with defensive coordinator D’Anton Lynn who is relying on Taupaki and Williams to anchor Penn State’s defensive line.

“(Malloe) saw that I didn’t have any faith or belief in my craft of wanting to take this to the next level,” Taupaki recalled. “He basically sat me up straight, looked at me dead in the eye and was like I believe in you, but you gotta believe in yourself more. … It was a wake-up call for somebody to see the vision that I didn’t see.”

When fans hear Taupaki’s name announced in Beaver Stadium or see it on TV this season, they should know his age and that 8^th season of eligibility aren’t a punchline. There’s a reason why he’s still playing. They’ll see a man whose parents immigrated to the U.S. from Tonga, a country in the South Pacific and then settled in East Oakland, California. They’ll find a person whose parents worked blue-collar jobs in construction and as a senior caregiver to provide for their six children. Before school, Taupaki was building decks and fixing houses alongside his dad. After school, when many kids were headed to play sports, he’d meet mom at her job. They taught their son the importance of always showing up and putting in the work.

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STATE COLLEGE, Pa. — Penn State’s senior class gathered at Matt Campbell’s house on Sunday to hangout and recharge as the season nears.

There were games and laughs and the kind of camaraderie that’s usually forged after years together, not months.

“I think the really good thing is the strength of our senior class right now has done an unbelievable job leading,” Campbell said Tuesday after Penn State wrapped up practice. “I had those guys at my house Sunday night and there’s just a great sense of gratefulness of what our seniors have done kind of merging this whole thing together and being great leaders for us.”

In the coming days, many of these seniors will play their first game in Beaver Stadium. For everyone on this roster it’s their first go-around with this team. For some, the backdrop is different even if their position coach and the head coach might still be the same. For others, they know this place but have spent the offseason building relationships with these coaches and learning a new offense or a new defense. Understanding the rhythm of a game day here from the pre-game meal at the team hotel to stepping off the blue bus and parading in will be different for many of them.

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STATE COLLEGE, Pa. — The town is bustling, classes are back in session and in the coming days the Nittany Lions will shift into game-week mode.

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As Matt Campbell’s Penn State debut nears, let’s take stock of where this roster is at with Week 1 quickly approaching.

From camp competitions, positions of strength and areas of need, here’s what’s on my mind as the preseason starts to wind down:

1. This staff loves these tight ends

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STATE COLLEGE, Pa. — Penn State practiced in a downpour Thursday morning and Matt Campbell had the soaking wet outfit and towel to show for it.

“It was fun for me as the head coach because this was as challenging as it can get and you’re gonna have to play in it,” Campbell said after stepping off the practice field.

It might’ve looked and even felt a bit like a soggy fall afternoon at the Big Ten venue of your choice, but Campbell is still trying to figure out what this team does best and how it handles the adversity that will come in waves during the season. Penn State is back practicing in the mornings now, a schedule that they’ll keep throughout the season. Classes begin Monday and come Sept. 5 in Beaver Stadium, everyone will begin to make judgments about this team and Penn State’s new era under Campbell.

“I think we’re going to keep learning a lot about this football team and I hate to tell you, but even through the first part of the season,” Campbell said. “I think we’re all going through each phase of this uniquely for the first time. The challenge is I’d love to tell you what I think we are, but I don’t know.”

Penn State will scrimmage again this Saturday and then use practices next week up until Wednesday to help figure out and solidify what this team looks like before shifting into a game week.

“These types of practices are what brings us closer together,” said quarterback Rocco Becht.

Here’s what’s on my mind after a jam-packed afternoon of interviews over in the football building:

2. Sorting out the backfield

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STATE COLLEGE, Pa. — Late at night, as Penn State’s winter workouts rolled on and Alex Manske adapted to his new home, the quarterback tried not to let the doubt creep in.

What was supposed to be a routine lift one day last February ended with Manske being pulled aside and into the office of Joe Resendez, Penn State’s director of football sports medicine. There’s no easy way to tell anyone, let alone a 19 year old who felt completely normal, that an echocardiogram revealed Manske had a dilated aortic root and a dilated ascending aorta.

The player who followed Matt Campbell and staff from Iowa State to Penn State, the one who projects as the quarterback of the future, was now in his room going down the rabbit hole of asking ChatGPT about his diagnosis. He was trying to decipher recovery timelines and outlooks for college quarterbacks who undergo open-heart surgery for this condition.

“(Resendez) told me from the start we have a plan. We’re gonna get you back. That’s kind of what Campbell was saying too,” Manske told a small group of reporters. “I trusted them, but I think when you’re sitting alone at night I think you can start thinking about it a little bit. There was definitely a couple nights where I was like oh shoot, I don’t know what’s going to happen.”

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STATE COLLEGE, Pa. — Penn State’s first scrimmage is in the books and there’s starting to be some clarity surrounding positions of need and intrigue as the Nittany Lions inch toward Sept. 5 against Marshall.

This was our first look at Penn State during a morning practice this preseason. Offensive coordinator Taylor Mouser, linebacker’s coach Tyson Veidt and select linebackers and tight ends met with reporters after practice. We’ll hear from Matt Campbell on Thursday as well as other assistant coaches and players.

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If you missed it, I have some photos and videos of a recent Beaver Stadium tour I went on highlighting the new upper west side.

While the campus comes back to life for move-in week and the season nears, here’s what’s on my mind after a humid morning out on the practice field:

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STATE COLLEGE, Pa. — Penn State’s multi-year renovation of Beaver Stadium, which began after the 2024 season and is expected to cost $700 million, is about a year out from completion.

With the Nittany Lions’ 2026 season opener just weeks away, Inside The Lions was invited to the construction site to check out where the renovation stands. Suited up in a hardhat and vest, the sneak peek of the upper west side included lots of fascinating sight-lines.

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This season, fans will be able to sit on the upper west side, which has bleacher seats that will continue being installed for the first few home games. Penn State anticipates that by the USC game on Oct. 10 all the upper bleachers will be in. Penn State aims to keep the attendance this season north of 108,000, athletic director Pat Kraft told Inside The Lions earlier this summer.

So, what’s it like on the upper west side? A good point of reference is that you’re actually looking over the massive Nittany Lion weathervane with Mount Nittany off in the distance:

What impressed me most?

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STATE COLLEGE, Pa. — With a new coaching staff, a roster full of new faces and lots of preseason intel, there’s no shortage of stories to write about this Penn State football team.

Whether you’ve checked out for the offseason or have been here every step of the way, there’s lots of information in here to get you ready for the upcoming season. Much of it has come from 1-on-1 conversations with players and coaches throughout the summer and preseason.

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We’re 20 days out from Penn State’s season opener against Marshall so let’s dive in:

20.

Matt Campbell’s defensive staff is loaded with former coordinators and likely a future one, too.

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STATE COLLEGE, Pa. — Matt Campbell referenced “culture meetings” a few times this preseason. Penn State’s team meeting room now features some fresh signage on the wall that aligns with these meetings, too.

“When you look on the wall you see the pyramid of everything, the foundation of our program,” safeties coach Deon Broomfield said Thursday evening as he pointed to this wall. “Every night, a coach gets up and speaks on a specific building block of the program.”

Players were given binders, or team manuals, where the head coach highlighted the foundations of his program. The sections in the binder coincide with the words on the wall, safety Jamison Patton said. At night this preseason, players and coaches come together for these culture meetings, which are meant to help strengthen bonds and get everyone more comfortable and familiar with one another. We already knew they’re all reading the same book, Campbell’s favorite, this season, too.

“Our culture meetings are our nighttime meetings and it’s really us putting football to the side and focusing on the man we’re becoming,” said safety Jeremiah Cooper. “Just core values. Everything you see on that wall over there is literally everything we go over. Just us being a better person off the field.”

Broomfield’s word was attitude.

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STATE COLLEGE, Pa. — Ryan Clanton warned Brock Riker that he likely was going to feel uncomfortable as they hashed out a plan for the center to execute his calls.

“He’s gotten a lot better,” Clanton said Wednesday after the Nittany Lions stepped off the practice field. “We told him like at the hotel, go in the bathroom, look in the mirror and start making calls. … Go through the script and start yelling. You might sound crazy, but you gotta practice.”

Riker’s improvement this preseason and just how comfortable the Texas State transfer gets with identifying and relaying the calls is one of the most important questions facing this offense. While Penn State’s camp competition with Riker and Dom Rulli continues, the redshirt sophomore can lean on Becht and running back Carson Hansen, who both know Taylor Mouser’s offense from their time at Iowa State. Hansen knows the protections as well as if not better than the offensive line, Clanton said.

Riker started 12 games at Texas State last season and was one of Penn State’s most intriguing adds via the transfer portal.

“Brock is a phenomenal talent,” Clanton said. “His communication skills, he’s gaining confidence really in his ability in the offense and he’s still got a lot of stuff to clean up too, so it’s still a pretty tight race with him and Rulli.”

2. Why are the tackles cross-training?

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STATE COLLEGE, Pa. — Thunderstorms rolled through Happy Valley Monday afternoon and forced Penn State’s practice inside to a muggy Holuba Hall. The session spanned nearly 2 hours and featured a lot of 11-on-11 work.

Big Ten Network was on hand and they’ll air their Penn State camp special Monday at 10 p.m. Media was present for the entirety of the practice, the third one we’ve seen this preseason and Penn State’s fifth workout overall.

Notes from practice 1 and 2 are here and here.

Here’s what I saw on Monday:

•I led the practice notes from last Thursday was the one-handed catch from Brett Eskildsen and sure enough I left Holuba Hall on Monday thinking this is someone who absolutely is an upgrade over what we’ve seen at the position the last few years. The moment that flashed for me this time was a 1-on-1 matchup where Eskildsen

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STATE COLLEGE, Pa. — Everything is up for grabs as Matt Campbell works through his first preseason at Penn State.

“I think everybody is in an earn-it situation where not only who’s the starter, because I think sometimes you can get lost in it,” Campbell said Friday during the team’s local media day. “We’re going to rotate a lot of guys. We’ll play a lot of guys. I’ve always felt like the more guys that can have a role on your football team, the healthier your football team is.”

If memory serves correct Friday was the first time Penn State held media day in Holuba Hall since 2011. That afternoon stands out because Joe Paterno fielded questions from a golf cart. There were no carts this time around as much of the 2026 Penn State football roster and the entire coaching staff was scattered throughout the indoor facility.

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After having conversations with 20-plus players and coaches, many of these in 1-on-1 settings, here’s what I learned:

1. Alex Manske is turning heads.

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