It has many impostors – many that try to live up to the hype but ultimately fall short. It is quite the spectacle, even for opposing fans.

Among the numerous YouTube videos about it, there is one that claims it is the most isolated landmass on the planet. As the fear-striking music continues, it says there is no horizon and there are no shadows. It also says, “Nature never intended for you to survive here.” The video even advertises itself as having an R rating.

What does this place have? To quote the video, “There is only white.”

This seemingly impossible landscape is the whiteout at Beaver Stadium, also known as Happy Valley, where the Alabama Crimson Tide will have to find a way to survive one of the most raucous crowds Happy Valley will see all year against Penn State this Saturday.

That same video that paints such a bleak picture is being watched by some Alabama football players several times a day. It’s even being played in the weight room.

With the hype on full blast, the players know they are in for an experience like no other in Happy Valley this weekend.

“I’ve never been to nothing like that before,” running back Eddie Lacy said. “It’s going to be my first time. I just have to stay focused and go for it.”

While it will be the first time Alabama experiences the whiteout, the Tide does have experience in environments like this one, with 107,282 fans in all white.

Look back to 2008, when Alabama was 4-0 and traveling to Athens to take on the then No. 3 team in the nation, the Georgia Bulldogs, ‘Between the Hedges’ in Sanford Stadium. It was a rare Georgia blackout against one of Georgia’s most talented teams of the decade, with Matthew Stafford, Knowshon Moreno and A.J. Green running the show.

Georgia was undefeated when donning the black jerseys, once in the 2007 version of the Deep South’s Oldest Rivalry against Auburn and again in that year’s Sugar Bowl against Hawaii. The combined score of those two games was 86-30 in favor of the Dawgs.

The sea of black in the stands was silenced by halftime as Alabama took a 31-0 lead, thanks to John Parker Wilson leading the Tide to scores on all of its first half possessions. The Tide coasted to a 41-30 victory on its way to an undefeated regular season.

Georgia hasn’t worn the black uniforms since.

The week of preparation for that game will surely help the Tide now, as well as knowing what worked so well in last year’s 24-3 victory in Bryant-Denny Stadium, especially for running back Trent Richardson, who had 144 yards and a touchdown.

“We’re watching film on that now, and we probably will for the rest of the week,” Lacy said. “By the time we get to Penn State, we’ll know what to do.”

Moving forward from last year’s game to this year’s game, there is no doubt that the Alabama coaching staff has been preparing its players for the challenge Happy Valley provides.

“We’ve been working on the psychological disposition you need to win on the road,” head coach Nick Saban said. “It’s going to be a real challenge and a test of our maturity. The big thing is getting them to focus and block out the clutter around them.”

Wide receiver Brandon Gibson added, “It’s a process of getting ready. We have the crowd noise going outside [in practice] and it’s something you have to prepare for. They have a lot of people there, and we have to prepare as much as we can.

The experience of this Alabama team will certainly help, especially with the silent counts and hand signals needed to win in a loud stadium.

“Us seniors are pretty used to it,” Gibson said.

As if the crowd noise wasn’t enough, there is also a good chance of rain for Saturday’s game, making the “most isolated landmass” even more impossible.

Saban said the team incorporates wet ball practice into its individual drills from time to time, including this Monday.

While a lot of the pregame talk has been about the whiteout and the environment the Tide is going to have to find a way to win in, it has been overlooked that this year’s Penn State team is much improved from the team that came to Bryant-Denny last season.

“From a scheme standpoint, just because they don’t do some of the fancy things you see in some spread offenses these days doesn’t mean that they’re not hard to prepare for,” Saban said. “They are well-coached and a very talented football team, and they’ve improved a lot from when we played them last year.”