Oregon State will earn more than $1 million for playing at Penn State in ’08

A deal for the most lucrative game in Oregon State football history was finalized by athletic director Bob De Carolis on Wednesday.

The Beavers re-released their 2008 schedule after reworking it the last four months, and it’s highlighted by a Sept. 6 game at Penn State in place of a trip to Idaho.

Other major changes include opening on the road with a Pacific-10 Conference game at Stanford on Aug. 28 or 30, and two Thursday games — Sept. 25 at home against Southern California and Oct. 2 at Utah.

“I’m excited for our players and fans about the 2008 schedule,” coach Mike Riley said. “Penn State is the type of game I like to schedule periodically and it is a great opportunity for this program to play at one of college football’s most historic sites.”

ESPN came to De Carolis with a list of big-name teams to pair with the Beavers for a broadcast on ABC and ESPN. After sorting through the list with Riley, the one-game only Penn State deal was worked out.

The Nittany Lions will pay OSU $800,000 for the visit. Television revenue increases the payday to $1.1 million. That tops the approximate $1 million the Beavers received for the 2004 game at Louisiana State.

“Any time you can play a team of historic proportions and play a team coached by a hall of fame coach (Joe Paterno), you go for it,” De Carolis said. “It’s a great venue to play in. It’s going to be loud and raucous. It will be a great experience for our kids, similar to LSU. But make no mistake; we are going to win the game.”

Penn State’s Beaver Stadium holds 107,282 fans and is the second-largest stadium in the country, behind Michigan Stadium. The largest crowd at Beaver Stadium was 110,753 on Sept. 14, 2002, a 40-7 Penn State victory over Nebraska.

This will be the first meeting with Penn State, and is a rare contest against a Big Ten Conference team.

OSU is 13-26-1 against the conference, having played each of the other 10 teams at least once.

The last Big Ten game was in 1986 at Michigan Stadium. That is the largest crowd OSU has played in front of at 104,741.

OSU freshman Keith Pankey is the only one on the team with experience with the Nittany Lions. His father, Irv, played at Penn State and he was involved in a combine there before his senior year at Mount Whitney High in Visalia, Calif.

He scrimmaged in Beaver Stadium and was impressed.

“That’s some atmosphere,” Pankey said. “There wasn’t anybody in the stands, but it was just walls of stands. That holds a lot of people. It’s one of those places; you’ll be like, ‘Wow’. USC and Cal are not 110,000 people in a small space like that. It’s like Autzen Stadium, but twice.”

De Carolis and Riley accepted the game for the big payout, national TV exposure and the promise of more TV games that are not usually broadcast.

That’s why the Stanford game was moved to the season opener. The Pac-10 has three TV slots on Saturdays and with five games going on, that matchup is left off the schedule due to its limited ratings draw.

With the option of a Thursday or Saturday kickoff to begin the season, that game was promised to be picked up at some point for an added $280,000. Another game to be determined that’s usually forgotten will be broadcast, De Carolis said.

“There were a lot of pieces to this, and it’s still fluid,” De Carolis said.

It was a challenge reworking the schedule because the Beavers already had 12 games scheduled for 2008. The biggest problem was getting out of the Idaho game.

ESPN brokered a deal for Idaho and Eastern Michigan to play each other, so OSU didn’t have to buy out of the Idaho contract.

Then the Utah game was set for the Oct. 4 Saturday, but there was a major Mormon function in Salt Lake City that weekend, so it was moved to a Thursday.

OSU offered money, less than the $50,000 buyout, to the Utes as a showing of good faith for the move to Thursday. That game should be picked up by ESPN through its working with the Mountain West Conference teams.

The USC game the weekend before Utah needed to be moved to a Thursday so OSU didn’t have a short week to prepare for the Utes.

The Trojans don’t usually play on Thursdays, and waited to see how their Thursday game at Arizona State went this year before committing.

De Carolis already talked with the OSU officials about the USC game and parking issues. School will not have started, yet, but the students will be on campus for the following Monday’s first day of class.

He expects the game to be a 6 p.m. kickoff.

The last game that could move is the Civil War. It’s scheduled for Nov. 29 in Reser Stadium.

De Carolis wants to bump it back to Dec. 6, Championship Saturday. That would allow fans and players to take Thanksgiving week off like this season.

He didn’t like how the 2006 Civil War wasn’t sold out until game time because it was played the Friday after Thanksgiving.

A change depends on Oregon finishing out its schedule.

The bottom line is the Beavers are undertaking one of their most difficult schedules. Eight of the 12 teams will be in bowl games this season.

Riley and De Carolis discussed the challenge before jumping in, and both felt the returning players can handle the schedule.

“It’s a damn tough schedule, there’s no doubt about that,” De Carolis said. “There are no cupcakes in that thing. Mike has not backed down from any battles. You have to commend him for that. And that will get our kids’ attention early on.”

2008 OSU Football Schedule

Aug. 28 or 30: at Stanford

Sept. 6: at Penn State (ABC or ESPN), 12:30 p.m.

Sept. 13: vs. Hawaii

Sept. 20: bye

Sept. 25: vs. USC

Oct. 2: at Utah

Oct. 11: vs. Washington State

Oct. 18: at Washington

Oct. 25: bye

Nov. 1: vs. Arizona State (Homecoming)

Nov. 8: at UCLA

Nov. 15: vs. California

Nov. 22: at Arizona

Nov. 29: Oregon