The S-Zone
Penn State’s Student “S-Zone”—
The History
The “S-ZONE” is where students form the block letter “S” in the middle of their south endzone seating section at home games…
The tradition dates to the 1998 season… It’s set up as 25 rows of 32 students each… It began with the students holding blue or white cards to create the S which was reminiscent of the “card sections” frequently seen at college games in the 1960’s… Penn State began using colored blue and white t-shirts in place of the cards in 2004, and pink and black t-shirts for homecoming games (pink & black are Penn State’s original 1887 team colors)… And they would later add a gold ribbon section for the annual THON game… Note: the pink “S” is sometimes confused by TV viewers/visiting fans as a Breast Cancer Awareness Month statement when homecoming falls in October…
The original location of the S zone was in the lower east stands near the south endzone… But they moved to the “S” to the center of the south lower stands in 2011 as part of an overall relocation of the students to create a noisier environment in the south endzone for opposing teams…
S-Zone Odds & Ends
The Penn State Alumni Association purchases the shirts, poms, and tickets for the 800 students who make up the S-Zone at each home game…
Prior to the S-Zone’s birth in 1998, card sections sometimes created the block-S look at Penn State games in the early 1960’s at Beaver Stadium notably on Band Day (a now defunct annual gameday event)…
At the April 21, 2007 Blue-White game, the S-Zone students formed the letters “VT” in honor of the 32 Virginia Tech students killed in the shooting on their campus in Blacksburg, VA five days earlier…
The have been some instances where a lack of students in attendance prevent the creation of the “S”—For example, at the 2024 Maryland game which fell on the Saturday after Thanksgiving when the students were on break from Fall Semester classes…
Nittany Notes:
The decision to move the student seating sections to fully wrap the south endzone in 2011 has created the “Wall of Sound” that the Penn State Athletic Department was looking for…
Probably, the best example stems from the 2019 Whiteout game vs. Michigan which delivered the so-called “Mo Bamba Moment”…
As Michigan walked on the field for its first possession of the night right in front the students in the south endzone, PSU was blaring the “barely clean lyrics” version of the 2017 hit song, Mo Bamba, from the album “Mudboy” by rapper Sheck Wes (Clean lyrics: “I be ballin’ like my brother Mo”—which refers to NBA basketball player Mo Bamba-a friend of the rapper’s from Harlem) and the students are singing along and making a ton of noise…
The music fades out with 7 seconds on the play clock, but the students have become deafening… Michigan quarterback Shea Patterson can’t get the ball snapped on time, and coach Jim Harbaugh calls time out before Michigan has run a single play to avoid a penalty… Several key recruits were present for this—Nick Singleton, Tyler Warren, and Theo Johnson, among others… And it made a memorable impact… Penn State beat Michigan, 28-21, and would reel off 6 consecutive victories in Whiteout games including this moment…