Penn State 'Zombie Nation': Why German techno song 'Kernkraft 400' is White Out tradition Craig Meyer, USA TODAY NETWORKSeptember 27, 2025 at 4:05 AM 0 College football, more than any other American sport, is built around traditions, acts that have been repeated by fans of a particular school so man...
- - Penn State 'Zombie Nation': Why German techno song 'Kernkraft 400' is White Out tradition
Craig Meyer, USA TODAY NETWORKSeptember 27, 2025 at 4:05 AM
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College football, more than any other American sport, is built around traditions, acts that have been repeated by fans of a particular school so many times over the years that it's impossible to envision a world without them.
Sometimes, it's a dramatic entrance, whether it's Michigan's players running out onto the field and leaping to touch a banner or Virginia Tech's players heading into battle to the electrifying tune of Metallica's "Enter Sandman." In other instances, it's a vehicle barging onto the field, be it Oklahoma's Sooner Schooner covered wagon or Georgia Tech's Ramblin' Wreck, a gold 1930 Ford Model A Sport Coupe. Occasionally, a live animal even gets involved, like Auburn's eagle or Colorado's beloved bison, Ralphie.
This weekend, the biggest game in the country will have one of the sport's most ubiquitous visuals as its backdrop.
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When Penn State and Oregon face off on Saturday, Sept. 27 under the lights of Beaver Stadium in University Park, Pennsylvania, they'll do so in front of one of the Nittany Lions' famed White Outs, with almost every one of the nearly 110,000 fans crammed inside the venue decked out in white.
And with that familiar sight will come a familiar tune.
Since the first Penn State White Out about 20 years ago, the event has become synonymous with a remix to the song "Kernkraft 400" by German DJ and producer Florian Senfter. The song's melody, and the crowd's accompanying chanting, reverberates throughout the stadium and invariably makes its way onto the television broadcast and the millions of people across the country tuning in.
How did the tradition come to be?
Here's a closer look at Penn State's relationship with the turn-of-the-century German techno song:
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Penn State 'Zombie Nation'
If you don't immediately know what "Kernkraft 400" is by name, you likely do once you've heard it.
The song's synth-heavy, techno beat is usually chanted along to whenever it's played at sporting events, with fans going "ohohohoh, oh oh oh oh, whoa oh oh oh" in unison.
As common as that scene has become in American sports, there are some misunderstood aspects of the song. For one, it's a remix, one that Senfter admittedly didn't care for, believing it to be too commercial for his sensibilities. The tune's also often and incorrectly referred to as "Zombie Nation," which is the name of Senfter's 1999 project on which the song appears.
How the song became a beloved gameday institution at a school in central Pennsylvania is another story entirely.
Penn State's marketing department was looking for ways to jazz up the game-day atmosphere for a Nittany Lions football program that was languishing in the early 2000s. While thinking of songs that could be played to excite the crowd, "Kernkraft 400" was suggested. As something of a trial run, it was dropped during a Penn State men's basketball game shortly after the Nittany Lions had forced a timeout from the visiting team. The arena went crazy and during the following 2005 football season, it was first used at a football game.
Since then, the song has only grown in popularity.
The school's famous saying, "We Are Penn State," fits seamlessly into the song as fans chant along to it with their ohs and various other guttural noises and grunts. Though Penn State consciously tries not to overplay the song and risk diluting the spirited reaction to it, the remix accompanies the Nittany Lions as they come out of the tunnel and onto the field for a White Out, and is blasted after particularly big plays over the course of the game.
Around the time "Kernkraft 400" began playing at Penn State games, architectural engineering professor Linda Hanagan and Ph.D. candidate Kelly Salyards began monitoring the accelerometers under the Beaver Stadium student section on game days. Not surprisingly, the readings reached their peak whenever "Kernkraft 400" played.
"It's pretty much the maximum amount of acceleration that we've recorded, during those episodes where everybody's jumping together," Salyards said to The Daily Collegian, the Penn State student newspaper, in 2006.
Its reach isn't just limited to the confines of Beaver Stadium, with the song becoming a staple of Penn State tailgates and bar playlists in State College.
Even its creator has come to terms with its omnipresence.
"Sometimes I felt like this monster I created developed a life of its own," Senfter said to Audrey Snyder of The Athletic in 2023. "You have to also accept that this is the song most people in the world associate you with."
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Penn State 'Zombie Nation': Why German song is White Out tradition
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