In anticipation of a busy weekend with the Blue-White football game and other events, the State College Police Department and Centre County Alcohol Task Force plan to increase security.

Four to eight additional officers will be on duty from 10 p.m. to 4 a.m. Friday and Saturday nights for the Source Investigation Project (SIP), State College Police Department Sgt. Dana Leonard said.

"Based on experience, the last weekends [of the semester] tend to be busy because of the weather and parties," Leonard said.

Leonard said the SIP officers are stationed in state stores and alcohol distributors in the State College area.

He added that "large, underage drinking parties" are a main focus of the extra police presence.

"We try to identify and hold accountable the hosts of the large parties," he said. "Highlands neighborhood and Holmes/Foster neighborhoods, those are the two areas we primarily focus on."

Ferguson Township Police Department Detective and task force coordinator John Conti said additional sobriety checkpoints and roving DUI patrols are scheduled because of the Blue-White game.

"About an additional 20 officers will be in the Centre Region concentrating on deterrence of alcohol-related crimes," Conti said.

Conti said the officers would also be stationed in state stores and bars throughout the Centre Region.

"We put police to deter minors from buying alcohol and those over 21 from buying it for minors," he said.

"Any information we discover on where alcohol might be furnished, we turn that information over to SIP," Conti added.

Conti said the additional police presence would continue throughout the Blue-White football weekend.

"Our main goal is not to arrest people, it's to decrease the number of alcohol-related incidents that can injure people," Conti said. "It's always the goal that everyone behaves themselves and there are no arrests. That's the best case scenario."

Leonard said the additional number of visitors creates more traffic problems and creates the potential for alcohol activity.

"Anytime you have a large influx of visitors ... our workload goes up," he said, "whether it's for the Arts Festival or the Fourth of July."

Penn State Police Supervisor Dwight Smith said the Blue-White game crowds "have been growing in the past several years."

"We've come to find out that we can't treat it much differently from a regular football game," he said. "It's become a popular weekend to spend in State College."

Smith said increased alcohol consumption is anticipated for the Blue-White game, though not as police expected would occur on St. Patrick's Day.

"We certainly anticipate more drinking than a regular weekend, especially if the weather is nice and we get a large crowd," Smith said.