The Big Ten Conference announced kickoff times on Wednesday for the first three games of the season for the Penn State football team.

The Nittany Lions will open the season at home on Saturday, Sept. 5, against Marshall at 3:30 p.m. Kickoff will take place on Fox Sports 1. In week 2, on Sept. 12 at noon, Penn State will play at Temple. The game will air on ESPN2.

For week 3, on Saturday, Sept. 19 at home, Penn State will welcome Buffalo to Beaver Stadium for a noon kickoff on the Big Ten Network.

After that, the only game that has a time and a network is a Friday, Oct. 2 date at Northwestern with an 8 p.m. kickoff. That game will air on FOX.

The Big Ten did report that the home game with Wisconsin on Saturday, Sept. 26, will air no later than 5 p.m.

PSU ticket sales

UNIVERSITY PARK _ The athletic department announced that single-game tickets for the season will go on sale starting Friday, June 5, at 10 a.m. Purchases can be made online at the team’s website, along with parking passes, too.

Home games this year include Marshall (Sept. 5), Buffalo (Sept. 19), Wisconsin (Sept.26), USC (Oct. 10), Purdue (Oct. 31), Minnesota (Nov. 14) and Rutgers (Nov. 21).

Pitt kickoff times

PITTSBURGH — The Atlantic Coast Conference and ESPN announced kickoff times and TV designations for a portion of the upcoming football schedule for the Pitt Panthers.

Pitt will open the season at home on Sept. 5, against Miami of Ohio. The game will air on the CW Network at either noon or 12:30 p.m.

The Panthers are home again on Saturday, Sept. 12, against Central Florida for a 3:30 p.m. kickoff on ESPN2. On Thursday night, ESPN will televise Pitt’s home game (Sept. 17) with Syracuse with a 7:30 p.m. kickoff.

On Saturday, Sept. 26, Pitt will play Bucknell at home with a noon kickoff on the ACC Network. The Panthers will play at Virginia Tech on Friday, Oct. 2, on ESPN at 7 p.m. Pitt will be at home on Friday the 13th in November when it welcomes Florida State for a 7 p.m. kickoff on ESPN.

SEC cutting cupcakes

DESTIN, Fla. — The Southeastern Conference is eliminating “cupcake weekend.”

The league’s athletic directors voted at their annual spring meetings for everyone to play conference games on the second-to-last week of the regular season beginning in 2027.

It means no more Football Championship Subdivision or lower-tier Football Bowl Subdivision opponents before those rivalry games that typically take place during the final week of the season.

“That’s the end of cupcake weekend,” SEC commissioner Greg Sankey said. “We never got that one sponsored, though.”

SEC decision-makers have discussed dumping those late-season payday matchups for months. The conference expanded to a nine-game league schedule beginning in 2026, prompting the need for more significant matchups in late November.

“It’s nine conference games and a recognition that you’re populating more weekends,” Sankey said. “And so you really cannot have odd numbers of open or non-conference dates later in the season because then that has a backward domino effect in where you place games early. We ran into some of that in the ’26 season.”

Only four SEC teams — Alabama, Auburn, Mississippi and Mississippi State – have such games set for this season