Series features speakers in Carnegie Cinema every Friday before a Penn State home football game
UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Penn State alum Todd Blackledge, the lead game analyst for NBC’s “Big Ten Saturday Night” college football coverage and the first quarterback to lead the Penn State football team to a national championship, will be the featured guest Sept. 1 when Football Fridays, an on-campus question-and-answer series, begins for the fall.
The free public session with Blackledge begins at 5:45 p.m. on Sept. 1 in Carnegie Cinema (113 Carnegie Building) and will be moderated by Brian Tripp.
Several other high-profile Penn State alumni are scheduled for future Football Fridays sessions. They include:
- Sept. 8 — Doug Allen (class of 1974), Penn State football letterman; former assistant executive director, NFLPA, and former national executive director, SAG (4 p.m., Carnegie Cinema)
- Sept. 22 — Mike Stevens (class of 1996), president, MDS Consulting, and former president of the Champions Tour – PGA (4 p.m., Carnegie Cinema)
- Oct. 13 — Morett-Curtiss (class of 1979), former Penn State field hockey coach and director of “Teammates For Life: A Penn State Women’s Athletics Initiative” (4 p.m., Carnegie Cinema)
- Oct. 27 — Kirk French, Penn State anthropology professor and Emmy-winning filmmaker, on “The Tailgate Archeology Project” (4 p.m., Carnegie Cinema)
- Nov. 10, 17 — Guests TBA (4 p.m., Carnegie Cinema)
Blackledge, who quarterbacked Penn State to the national championship in 1982, begins his 30th season as a network college football analyst after spending the 1994-2022 seasons in the booth for ABC, CBS and, most recently, ESPN. In addition, he has called a College Football Playoff semifinal in each of the past nine seasons.
This is the first season of primetime college football coverage for NBC with Blackledge as an integral part of the broadcast team working with Noah Eagle and Kathryn Tappen. They will work the West Virginia-Penn State game Sept. 2 at Beaver Stadium.
Blackledge, an Academic All-American who earned his bachelor’s degree from Penn State in 1983, received the University’s Distinguished Alumni Award in 2009. He was 31-5 as a three-year starter at quarterback for the football team and led the team to the 1982 national championship after a Sugar Bowl victory against Georgia. He earned the Davey O’Brien Award as the nation’s top quarterback and finished sixth in the Heisman Trophy voting that season.
He was selected seventh overall in the 1983 NFL Draft and played seven seasons with the Kansas City Chiefs (1983-87) and the Pittsburgh Steelers (1988-89).
Tripp, a feature content producer and on-air talent for Penn State Athletics, serves as the sideline reporter for Penn State football broadcasts and as the play-by-play voice for Penn State men’s hockey. He earned his bachelor’s degree from Penn State in 2011.
Football Fridays speakers series is sponsored by the Penn State Center for the Study of Sports in Society and the Penn State All-Sports Museum, and hosted by the Donald P. Bellisario College of Communications.