Ranking the 10 biggest college football stadiums by seating capacity
By Dante Pryor
2. Beaver Stadium – Home of the Penn State Nittany Lions – 106, 572
Who could ever imagine a place called “Happy Valley” where all the fans where white is one of the toughest most intimidating places to play college football? When you have over 105,000 fans roaring–pun intended–“We are–Penn State” from one side of the stadium to the other, the only happy people are the Penn State faithful.
It is not hard to imagine an opposing quarterback having a difficult time calling signals with that many rowdy fans. Beaver Stadium’s capacity of over 105,000 makes it the second-largest stadium in both the Big Ten and the NCAA. Happy Valley is also the second-largest stadium in the Western Hemisphere and fourth-largest in the world.
Some of the more unique things about where Penn State plays its football are they’ve always played in Beaver Stadium. No matter the location of the field during various times in the history of the program it’s always been named after James A. Beaver, former Governor and president of Penn State’s board of trustees.
Beaver Stadium might be the only facility ever carefully taken down brick by brick, moved, and reassembled. In 1960, the field was dismantled and moved to the east side of campus and then put back together making that the permanent home of Beaver Stadium.
Happy Valley is widely known as one of the best college football experiences in the country. USA Today dubbed Beaver Stadium the best college stadium in 2016. Kirk Herbstreit of ESPN claimed the Nittany Lions have the best student section in the country.
A visit to Beaver Stadium for a night game should be on any college football fans bucket list. Just make sure you pack some white for the game.