Best Penn State sights and sounds from Pat Kraft, Lions practice: Newsstand

Penn State news, notes, and updates for Aug. 20 include the top sights and sounds from Pat Kraft’s news conference and the Lions’ latest practice. The atheltic director held his first news conference since February on Tuesday. As you can probably imagine, a bulk of the questions focused on the renovated Beaver Stadium and its temporary seating before the 2025 season starts.

“Prior to the installation that you all saw being built, Thornton Thomas Eddie, a structural engineering company, came by to conduct a thorough review of the existing floor plate of the main concourse level, which is where the temporary seating is,” Kraft said. “They wanted to make sure that they could hold the load of the temp seating, first and foremost. So structural engineers looked at it. Then the structure went into a two-phase check. So, InProduction, they put the bleachers up, they look at it, and we bring in an independent third party to come in and look at it. So the structure is safe. It is safe, been looked at. It’s been inspected.”

Read more about the stadium here. This year’s capacity will be 106,304.

In other news, James Franklin held his latest news conference on Tuesday as the Lions now sit 10 days from Nevada. Things are good on the health front, the 12th-year leader of the program said, and said that the team is inching closer to picking its backup quarterback. Ethan Grunkemeyer and Jaxon Smolik have been fighting for that role.

Read more about all of that and more from practice here.

Penn State headlines of the day

Checking in on a Penn State position battle on defense and more: Three Tuesday thoughts 11 days before Nevada: Pickel, BWI

Everything Pat Kraft said about the state of Beaver Stadium before Penn State-Nevada: ‘The structure is safe’: Pickel, BWI

Trimmings: Unexpected position battle emerging in Penn State’s preseason camp: Carr, BWI

Elite 2028 edge rusher confirms when he’ll be back at Penn State this fall: Snyder, BWI

Local recruiting going great for Penn State early on in 2027 class: Gorney, On3

James Franklin: Overrated or underappreciated? College football may get its answer this season: Russo, The Athletic

Quote of the day

“The atmosphere is great on campus and on game day and the whole staff is amazing but coach Traut and  my relationship was the selling point.

“I know he believes in me and what I can become as a player playing for him. He is honest and not only tells me what I do well but what he wants me to work on which is rare in the recruiting process but it lets you know he will coach you hard and do his best to develop you to ultimately play and hopefully get to the next level. My family was on board with my decision so early mainly because of the trust they had built up with coach Franklin and coach Traut.”

Middletown (Del.) Appoquinimink four-star offensive tackle Layton von Brandt to On3 on why he picked PSU.