No guarantee of score on Penn State scoreboards

Some die-hard Penn State fans probably anticipate seeing two huge scoreboards in use for the team’s first home game Sept. 6 at Beaver Stadium.

They’ll get more than two scoreboards, though. They’ll get four — and what they see might be a little unexpected.

Along with the eco-friendly, high-tech and well-publicized boards mounted over the north and sound end zones (the existing boards were retrofitted with state-of-the-art technology), two simple, smaller scoreboards hang under the front edge of both the north and south decks at the stadium.

Those smaller boards will always feature game score, down and distance because the “videoboards” — and that’s the more accurate term — will not always display the game score.

So, the frequency, size and quality of videos available might increase from what has been seen in the stadium in the past, but there’s no guarantee the score will be on the boards.

Honest.

That’s why the smaller scoreboards, visible behind the goalposts at each end of the stadium, were installed to make sure the basics were handled on a regular basis.

Penn State officials plan to put updated statistics on the videoboards and there’s almost no doubt what ends up on the screens might be some compelling and interesting images. Game information will be on the screens between videos as well.

Hopefully, though, as things shake out during the season and Penn State puts the boards through their paces, someone will find a way to fit all the information on the screen together. From a customer-service, user-friendly standpoint, people are accustomed to seeing video and at least a score/time logo on a sports broadcast.

It just seems something like that could be done with the videoboards as well.