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STATE COLLEGE, Pa. – The four big speakers have been perched at the edge of the practice field all week, blasting country, rap, Van Halen, Boston and even a little crowd noise into the ears of the Iowa football players as they go through workouts.

If the Hawkeyes don’t play well today in a nationally televised 7:12 p.m. game at Penn State’s Beaver Stadium, it won’t be because the blast of sound produced by 109,000 angry people caught them by surprise.

The Hawkeyes practice with the volume turned up at least once a week and that became a larger point of emphasis this week as they prepared to open the Big Ten season against the fifth-ranked Nittany Lions in what figures to be a distinctly unhappy Happy Valley.

“Any time of day it’s a tough place, and I’m guessing at night it might be even a little bit more hostile and more of a challenge,” Iowa coach Kirk Ferentz said. “Just in case we need a little bit more degree of difficulty, we have that, too.”

Penn State also has designated this as a white-out game, encouraging all fans to wear white apparel to the game. But Ferentz isn’t concerned about his team being blinded by the white.

He’s much more concerned about his players being deafened by the sound, especially when the Hawkeyes have the football.

So he has taken steps to simulate that on the practice field. The Hawkeyes do this every Wednesday anyway, even if they’re playing at home.

“For a long time I just thought that was all garbage,” Ferentz said. “We used to do it in the ’80s, and we did it when I was in the NFL. I thought it was kind of over-hyped, but last year I figured we’d give it a shot. It’s part of our routine. I don’t know if it helps or not. If (the players) think it helps, then it helps. That’s good.”

The players think it helps.

“It makes you elevate your focus a little more,” wide receiver Trey Stross said.

“We wouldn’t do it if it didn’t help,’’ quarterback Ricky Stanzi added.

Ferentz likes it because it forces the players to use non-verbal forms of communication.

“Up on the line usually they can hear a little bit if the quarterback bends down and yells, but out on the perimeter you can’t hear a thing,” he said. “That’s how it’ll be Saturday.”

The type of music the Hawkeyes use varies. Ferentz leaves all that up to director of football operations Paul Federici and strength coach Chris Doyle.

“We’ve got a little bit of everything going,” Ferentz said. “Some stuff I’ve never heard and some stuff I have. We piped in some crowd noise last week. I think it was an Australian football game or soccer game from Denmark or something like that. It sounded like a foreign crowd.”

The hardest part of today may be the anticipation. The players and coaches will need to sit around all day waiting for the game. But linebacker Pat Angerer doesn’t think even that will bother him.

“I like it,” he said. “I can get up, have a cup of coffee, have a little breakfast and watch football all day.”

Hawkeyes’ Bulaga won’t play

Ferentz announced Friday that junior offensive lineman Bryan Bulaga won’t play tonight because of an undisclosed illness. It will be the third consecutive game Bulaga has missed since playing in the season opener against UNI.

Meanwhile, tight end Tony Moeaki and receiver Derrell Johnson-Koulianos are game-day decisions, Ferentz said.