DaytonDailyNews.com

In 64 years as a State College resident, Bill Welch has been part of many Penn State football Saturdays.

"It's sort of like the tide coming in," said Welch, the Pennsylvania town's mayor.

Consider today high tide. As Penn State prepares to host No. 1 Ohio State in one of today's top college football games, Nittany Lion fans have again turned the campus and surrounding State College into a pre-party, including tents and profanity-laden T-shirts.

As an area of 38,000 that often seems several hours from anything, it becomes the state's third-largest city on game day. That represents a frenzy for the sport that, based on the size of the stadium and frequency of major crowds, makes Penn State a favorite college football spot in the nation.

"It's really exciting to be around the atmosphere like this ... on campus, come up to the stadium right now and see the tents up there and all the guys waiting there for their seats," said Dan Connor, a Penn State linebacker.

Paternoville, a set of students in tents near the stadium entrance waiting to grab prime seats, has popped up just recently. It's also popular to produce custom T-shirts to display as one of the 17,000 people to pass through the Penn State student union during the afternoon hours. On Fridays, the area outside the union transforms.

"It's a carnival atmosphere," said Jay Chamberlin, a Penn State senior and former president of the University Park Undergraduate Association. "Radio stations broadcast from the campus, there are prizes, food and drinks. Of course, it helps people get more excited for the game."

Some of those custom T-shirts have drawn unwanted attention.

One set of shirts in the window of People's Nation, a store near the heart of downtown, hid part of the profanity with a sign that read, "Censored by the Borough of State College and all the right wing, conservative, religious hypocrites."

Such passion is displayed not just on students' backs but in Beaver Stadium crowds. In 2005 — the last time Ohio State visited State College (and OSU's last regular-season loss) — the Buckeyes played in front of 109,839 people, the fourth-largest crowd in the history of the 57-year-old stadium. The fans cheer for the Nittany Lion, adopted in 1907 after a student who was impressed with seeing the Princeton tiger up close campaigned for a mascot.

Outside of football, Happy Valley is considered an interesting place to live for both students and nonstudents. The 2007-08 College Destinations Index, a report prepared for the National Association for College Admission Counseling's annual conference, named State College the nation's top college town, ahead of Bloomington, Ind., and Champaign-Urbana, Ill.

Part of that, of course, is the restaurant and bar scene, which includes favorites such as the Tavern and the Rathskeller. Welch, the State College mayor and former executive editor of the local newspaper, moved into a house near the Tavern at age 1. Since, he has seen many college football Saturdays.

"The scene outside Beaver Stadium in the hours before a game reminds me of nothing so much as a Renaissance Fair," Welch said. "It's a cosmopolitan group, but they all join for football."

Contact this reporter at (937) 225-7389

or knagel@DaytonDailyNews.com