BWI Live: Can Penn State dominate the stretch run and get ready for the playoffs?

The Penn State Nittany Lions Football team dominated Washington in the 2024 White Out Game on Saturday, setting up a critical stretch run for a team trying to make its first-ever College Football Playoff appearance. Can the team fix its weaknesses in the final months? Join the BWI Live Show to discuss that, recruiting, and much more!

Penn State Football experts Sean Fitz and Nate Bauer sit down for an hour to discuss the latest in football, recruiting, and your questions. We’ll be opening up the BWI Mailbag to end the show, so get your questions into the live chat during the show!

Penn State vs. Washington review

We’ll start the show by recapping the game between Penn State and Washington on Saturday and discuss how the team got out to such a hot start on offense and what they did to consistently score touchdowns. Was that the most complete half of football that the team has played? We’ll discuss.

Fitz’s Recruiting Update

Next, we’ll discuss what happened off the field for the Penn State Football team. The program picked up two commitments on Saturday and Sunday. First, four-star offensive lineman Layton von Brandt committed to the Nittany Lions. Fitz will discuss the impact of an offensive line commit two years out from his signing day.

Four-star defensive end Chaz Coleman followed on Sunday night. Check out our breakdown of that commitment from Monday. Fitz will follow up with his thoughts on Coleman’s impact.

Finally, we’ll review the team’s other White Out recruiting news to end the segment.

Between The Lines

Penn State head coach James Franklin spoke with the media on Monday to kick off the team’s final road game stretch, starting with Purdue this coming weekend. As is the case when facing a 1-8 team, very few of the questions and answers were about the Boilermakers. Today, we’ll focus on the things Franklin said about redshirts, facilities and Hakeem Beamon

On how Penn State handles redshirts in the final three games:

“The way we look at the green/yellow/red. Green, you’re trying to burn. Yellow, you’re trying to hold the redshirt if you can. And red is a guy that’s most likely going to redshirt. And all those things can changed based on injury.

What I’m saying is we manage this that we now should be at this stage, a lot of these guys be able to play and still be able to keep their redshirt.”

Penn State Facilities

Well, what I will say is, number one, I’m appreciative of all the work that’s gone in over our 11 years. One of the things I’d like to show you guys at some point is we’ve taken before-and-after pictures of everything, and I think back all the way to standing on that turf practice field and my back was up against the fence and you guys were asking me questions — a lot of the same people in the room were asking me questions about facilities. And that was a battle when I first got here.

Beamon

“He’s no longer a part of the program. I love Hakeem. Love his mom. It’s been probably over seven years from the high school recruiting process and ups and downs and twists and turns and smiles and tears and everything in between. Graduating from Penn State, we’re very, very proud of that for him and did a bunch of good things on the field. But he’s no longer a part of the team.”

BWI Mailbag

Finally, we’ll end the show with questions from viewers and members of the Blue White Illustrated message board. Join the show to participate in the conversation!