Penn State preparing for Auburn’s ‘Orangeout’ atmosphere

Auburn star Derick Hall made quite the claim Monday when speaking with local media, saying: “I know our Orangeout will be better than their Whiteout.”

Last year, Auburn visited Penn State and lost 28-20 in front of a sold-out Beaver Stadium crowd. Now, it’s the Tigers’ turn to host the Nittany Lions. And to counter Penn State’s Whiteout, Auburn has encouraged all fans to wear orange when the teams clash at 3:30 p.m. Saturday at Jordan-Hare Stadium.

“It’s going to be a challenge,” Penn State coach James Franklin said at his Tuesday press conference, perhaps hinting he heard Hall’s comments. “Have listened to all their press conferences and listened to all those types of things. … We’re getting our players prepared for what that’s going to look like and what that’s going to be.

“It’s going to be similar to some of the better environments in the country. There’s no doubt about it. They take a ton of pride in their program and their university and their community. Football’s really important there in that region of the country. We know it’s going to be challenging, and we have a ton of respect for it.”

Franklin has first-hand experience at Jordan-Hare Stadium, considered to be one of the more raucous crowds in the SEC. Franklin, Vanderbilt’s coach from 2011-13, never faced the Tigers on the road during his tenure. But Franklin did visit the 87,451-seat stadium as Kansas State’s offensive coordinator in 2007.

Franklin has used that experience, plus conversations with colleagues in the coaching community, to plan ahead of Penn State’s visit. Franklin — rooted in his “1-0″ mantra, focused on the game at hand — said he started to prepare for the trip to Auburn last week ahead of the Nittany Lions’ 46-10 win over Ohio.

The Nittany Lions went with a total silent count during practice, blaring the music “as loud as possible” despite being days away from their home opener at Beaver Stadium.

“Guys were looking at me like I was crazy, the staff and the players,” Franklin said. “… Everyone’s like, ‘We’re at home this week.’ Well, we were starting our preparation a week ahead for that without telling anybody that’s what we were doing.”

That preparation will continue this week. Franklin will show the players pictures and videos of the away locker room, the pregame War Eagle tradition, everything. Franklin also pointed out San Jose State was called for three offensive procedural penalties in the red-zone during Auburn’s narrow 24-16 win last weekend.

It’ll help that sixth-year quarterback Sean Clifford has played in every Big Ten environment and can exert a level of calm over playing in front of a hostile crowd. But everyone saw what happened last fall when Clifford went down at Iowa and backup quarterback TaQuan Roberson wasn’t adequately coached up for the moment.

Franklin intimated he doesn’t want something like that to happen again.

“We’re going to prepare for it as much as we can,” Franklin said. “But at the end of the day, we still have to go out there and execute. And that’s not just with our starters. That’s with whoever could possibly be in the game.”