Penn State football has a new opponent on its 2026 nonconference schedule.
Per a report by Matt Fortuna of The Inside Zone, Penn State will now host Maine in 2027, after the initial plan for Penn State to host Delaware fell through.
Fortuna reported that Delaware and Penn State worked on finding Penn State a replacement, and Delaware is splitting the cost.
Penn State’s non-conference schedule in 2027 now consists of Syracuse, Temple and Maine. Syracuse and Temple are both regional opponents that Penn State played every year once upon a time. Maine, on the other hand, is a school Penn State has never played.
Maine has made some strides over the past two seasons under head coach Jordan Stevens, improving from 2-9 in 2023 to 5-7 in ’24 and 6-6 last year.
The 2027 nonconference schedule should be an improvement over this upcoming one.
In coach Matt Campbell’s first season at Penn State, the non-conference schedule— which was in place long before Campbell took the job— consists of home games against Marshall and Buffalo, with a road game at Temple sandwiched in between.
Add Nittany Sports Now as a preferred source in Google! Click here to add us.The 2027 schedule does at least have a Power Four opponent in Syracuse.
It’s not clear yet what Campbell’s non-conference scheduling philosophy will be. The only development so far has been the switch from Delaware to Maine, which was reportedly a mutual agreement. Campbell’s predecessor, James Franklin, made his stance on out-of-conference scheduling quite clear.
“Right now it’s kind of undefeated or at the most one loss, and then on top of that, if you’re not scheduling to be undefeated, you’re scheduling to have the least amount of losses possible to give yourself a chance to be in the playoffs,” Franklin said in October 2023. “There’s another team in this conference that has had a ton of success the last couple years, and again, I think it would follow the same argument.”
If Campbell has a similar philosophy, Penn State fans won’t be seeing marquee non-conference matchups for a while.
Penn State opens the 2026 season and Matt Campbell era against Marshall Sept. 5. The time and television details are to be determined.
