It's Penn State-Auburn and Whiteout week: Spread, TV info, storylines, more

Penn State's biggest non-conference test of the season is here.

The Nittany Lions are 2-0 following wins over Wisconsin (16-10) and Ball State (44-13) to start the year, and now they are ready for a top-25 showdown with Auburn that doubles as the team's annual Whiteout game at Beaver Stadium.

Here's everything you need to know to get ready for the week.

Kickoff is set for 7:30 p.m. on ABC, and the network's top crew featuring Chris Fowler on play-by-play, Kirk Herbstreit doing color commentary, and sideline reporter Holly Rowe, will work the contest.

The game will also air on radio affiliates across the state via the Penn State Sports Network. Steve Jones and Jack Ham will have the call from Beaver Stadium.

Penn State was listed as a 7.5-point favorite by a variety of bookmakers prior to the start of the season, but now it's down to 4.5 at FanDuel.

Tuesday will feature player interviews and a lengthy news conference with Franklin. On Wednesday, there will be more player calls in addition to a chance to watch practice plus another opportunity to interview Franklin and a player.

Thursday brings the Penn State Coaches Show, which Franklin typically appears on for the last half hour, and that will be it for the week until Saturday morning, when College GameDay rolls into town. Franklin has always been on the show when it airs from State College in past years, so we should be able to expect to hear from him again and then of course after the game as well.

The Tigers have absolutely buried their first two opponents. They beat Akron 60-10 in the opener before stomping Alabama State 62-0 in Week 2.

Quarterback Bo Nix leads the charge, as he's thrown for 383 yards and five touchdowns so far, while a pair of backs, Jarquez Hunter and Tank Bigsby, each have a pair of touchdowns already. Interestingly enough, Auburn does not yet have a receiver with 100 yards after the first two weeks despite the back-to-back blowouts.

Linebacker Zakoby McClain is the leading tackler to date with 17.

"It comes back to what do we have to do this week to get ourselves ready for a Tuesday practice so that we can maximize that and build off the last two weeks of preparation and just be better going into this week," Harsin told reporters, according to AL.com. “That’s always the focus, and I believe that. I think there’s going to be -- everybody wants to hit that fast-forward to Saturday and we go play Penn State, and if we skip days or we don’t take care of the things that we need to then we won’t be prepared properly.

"So, we’re going to aim high for each and every day. We’re going to be focused on that. You know, the older players on our team need to help with that from a mentality standpoint with the team because they should be the guys that know if you look too far ahead that’s where it gets you and if you’re not preparing properly then you’re not going to have the confidence you need to go play in a game like that.”

-- This is the first regular season meeting between the two schools. The Lions beat the Tigers 43-14 in the Outback Bowl to end the 1995 season, but Auburn won the Citrus Bowl at the end of the 2002 season by a 13-9 count.

- -Penn State has not yet beat an SEC team in the James Franklin era. It lost to Georgia in the 2015 TaxSlayer Bowl and Kentucky in the 2019 Citrus Bowl.

--The Lions are 16-21 all-time against SEC schools. The last win over a school from that conference came in 2009, when PSU beat LSU in the Citrus Bowl.

-- James Franklin starts his eighth season at the helm of the Nittany Lions, while Bryan Harsin is in his first at Auburn.

Here's what Weather.com has to say:

"Partly cloudy skies. High 81F. Winds NNW at 5 to 10 mph."

--How good is Auburn? It's somewhat hard to say, as Akron is one of the worst teams in all of college football and Alabama State is an FCS program. The Tigers will bring a talented bunch north, but it's hard to gauge how strong of a team this actually is.

--How exciting is it to think that we are less than a week away from the first Whiteout since 2019? That's going to be one of the biggest talking points of the week in addition to the GameDay crew coming to campus. Will Lee Corso don Nittany Lions headgear?

--Something tells me a topic of conversation at James Franklin's Tuesday news conference might focus on the lack of production from the tight ends so far. The head coach set a high bar for that group before the season began, but it hasn't produced as much as many expected it to throughout the first two weeks.

--Will any of Hakeem Beamon, Keaton Ellis, or John Lovett be back for this matchup? All were seen on the Beaver Stadium sideline prior to the game but did not play.

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