Illinois linebacker Brit Miller took last weekend off. He didn't watch any football and tried to avoid talking about his team at his little cousin's seventh birthday party.

After a day of eating chili dogs with his cousin -- which was her idea, Miller said -- Illinois' leading tackler retreated to his room. There, Miller took the time to rest and allowed his body to recover.

On Monday, football again took over Miller's thoughts. More specifically, his team's road trip to Happy Valley to play No. 12 Penn State Saturday night, a showdown some Illinois players said they weren't looking forward to when the schedule was announced.

"We're really not looking forward to that," senior center Ryan McDonald said earlier this summer. "I don't want to say not looking forward to it because it will be fun, but Penn State brings it every year. They're a disciplined team, a solid team, they're physical and we know we're in for a battle every time we play them."

McDonald and Miller also know they're in for a rude welcoming.

The Illini will travel more than 640 miles and arrive in State College, where the Nittany Lions and 110,000 fans will be waiting for them. Illini players won't be the only ones wearing white when the television cameras come on for the primetime showdown. With the exception of a small sliver of Illinois fans, everyone else in the stadium will be wearing white for what will be Penn State's second full-stadium white out.

The objective? Intimidation.

When Miller allowed football to creep back into his mind earlier this week, he thought about the huge test ahead of him and his teammates.

"I think Penn State, going to Penn State, that is the loudest stadium and the most daunting when you see how big it is when you're out on the field," Miller said. "The atosphere that they bring and of course the white out game. Their fans do a great job of giving their team the homefield advantage."

Dave Yukelson is a sports psychologist that works with Penn State athletes. In a telephone interview Tuesday, Yukelson said the best preparation an athlete can have heading into a hostile environment in view of so many people is confidence.

Yukelson said a player should be sure of themselves and their goal so they can act without having to think too much. Overthinking leads to second guessing and mistakes on the field, Yukelson said.

"The confidence comes in knowing that you're prepared and that you have a good idea in your mind's eye of the formations that you're going to see and that you can be instinctive as opposed to thinking too much," Yukelson said.

Teams try everything they can to replicate an atmosphere of an opposing stadium.

Miller said No. 22 Illinois practiced this week with loud music to simulate the ruckus they will encounter inside Beaver Stadium. Illinois does not employ a sports psychologist.

"If you're focused, you're focused on the task at hand," Yukelson said. "The simulation of the noise affects the cadence of calls, it affects the energy that's running through your body, the adrenaline. Those are some of the things as a sports psychologist that you want to help them manage. You can't simulate it in practice, but you can have them go through it in their own mind's eye."

On the other side, Yukelson said the crowd will undoubtedly pump Lion players up.

Senior cornerback Lydell Sargeant said the crowd is great to play in front of, but he doesn't expect the pro-Penn State crowd to rattle the Illini players much.

"I don't know if they're really intimidated because they've been here a couple of times," Sargeant said Tuesday. "They've played here. Just that dynamic of having 110,000-115,000 people cheering for the opposing team is big for us especially on big downs, on third downs or fourth down. People really don't understand how big the crowd is."

Penn State players will have plenty of time to think about the game also. The Lions will have to wait around for the majority of the day before kickoff.

Senior safety Anthony Scirrotto said he'll spend time with his family at the team hotel, but his focus will still be on football.

Scirrotto said he and his teammates will watch other college football games and study game tape of Illinois right up until kickoff -- but no chili dogs.

"I would say we would be focused the whole day because we don't want to forget about what we've got going on later that night."