As arguably half the campus gears up to watch the Pittsburgh Steelers Sunday night in Super Bowl XL, the police have a preparation of their own in the works.

"We're going to have a lot of people out -- we're beefing up on man power," State College Police Sgt. Mark Argiro said.

Because there is the chance of a post-Super Bowl mass migration to Beaver Canyon to celebrate, the State College Police Department has requested assistance from neighboring municipalities -- just in case.

"Usually people spill out of the bars and come right to the canyon," Argiro said.

He added that more officers will be patrolling downtown to make sure order is kept because of the size of the students' Steelers fan base.

"This would not happen if this was a football team that didn't have a big following at Penn State," Argiro said. "Any other team involved we would probably not take these same precautions."

Because problems with last year's Super Bowl -- where the Philadelphia Eagles fell short of victory -- were minimal, both Argiro and Penn State University Police assistant director Tyrone Parham said they aren't expecting anything drastic to occur.

"Obviously we're hoping for positive celebration. We don't anticipate anything negative," Parham said.

He added that if the Steelers beat the Seattle Seahawks, he expects some students to spill into the quad areas to celebrate. "It's really hard to anticipate, but we're increasing staffing that night as well," Parham said.

He added that some Penn State police officers might help the State College police downtown.

As for the chance of a rowdy crowd, Parham said it depends on other factors like the suspense of the game.

"If it's a blowout from the beginning, it might not be that big of a celebration," Parham said. "But if it's a nail-biter, determined by the last five seconds, that's different."

Argiro said there were no problems when the Steelers played the Denver Broncos Jan. 22. Only one citation was issued to a man who was driving around the block beeping his car horn.

Parham said the Steelers playing a team like the Seahawks -- a relatively low-intensity rivalry at Penn State because Seattle is so far away -- is much better than other match-ups.

"Eagles versus the Steelers in a Super Bowl?" Parham ventured. "Then we could certainly anticipate a lot of problems."