Let’s take a quick Phillies break for a college football update. 5-0 Penn State heads to LA this weekend to throw trash at Padres players. No wait – that’s Dodgers fans. Penn State heads to Los Angeles this weekend to play Southern Cal and they have to bus an hour (maybe 2) to Harrisburg and fly out of there because the State College runway isn’t long enough:

Reading through the tweets from all of the aviation experts, it seems like it’s an issue of taking off with all of the fuel, equipment, Franklin’s ego, etc. Can’t fit it all in there. They can leave from State College but would have to stop to refuel and make some sacrifices to get the plane in the air.

Audrey Snyder wrote about it at The Athletic (now with ads):

What opposing football teams are bound to learn is what Penn State’s equipment staffers know all too well. The runway at University Park Airport — located four miles from Beaver Stadium — isn’t long enough to allow for certain narrow-body aircraft types such as the Boeing 737-800, 737-900 and 757-300.

While the airport confirmed that these types of aircraft can and do operate from the existing runway, in order to do so they have to make certain concessions, whether it’s the number of passengers, payloads or fuel loads. For football teams traveling to and from the West Coast, this is significant. It means a team can’t fly directly in or out of State College with all of its equipment in the belly of the aircraft.

You can take two planes, and put the equipment in one and the players in the other. Dunno if that’s better or worse than taking one plane from Harrisburg. You could also just stop and refuel, not sure if that’s preferable to getting on a bus for a direct flight. I hate to agree with James Franklin, but he’s got a point here. It’s crazy that they have to drive an hour just to fly five hours for a conference game. Thoughts and prayers to the Lions this weekend. If they lose, it will be because the State College airport runway is too short. WE ARE! Officially over conference realignment.