Penn State got its first real test in Week 4 after a 3-0 start against a Group of Six teams that never posed a real threat and was not up to the challenge. Matt Campbell’s Nittany Lions fell 24-20 to Wisconsin at Beaver Stadium and effectively saw all their hopes of parlaying a soft Big Ten schedule into a College Football Playoff appearance disappear.
The Nittany Lions will almost undoubtedly fall from the AP Top 25, with any win of significance to buoy them, and considering how well Northwestern played against Indiana on Friday night, is by no means guaranteed to get back into the win column anytime soon.
The problems were aplenty, and the silver linings are scarce. Still, we found two winners from an ugly loss.
Winners
2. Josiah Zayas
Josiah Zayas isn’t yet a full-timer on the Penn State defense, but he’s made almost as many splash plays as anyone in an incredibly talented secondary. Zayas helped spot Penn State’s offense a lead with an impressive pick-six, jumping a screen to take it the other way.
There’s still more he needs to bring to usurp Zion Tracy in the slot, but the flashes are fantastic for a true freshman, and a defensive score should have been more than enough for Penn State to win this game.
1. Tony Rojas
Rojas has been the best player on the field for Penn State in pretty much every game this season. That was especially true on Saturday night at Beaver Stadium. His sideline-to-sideline speed was on display as a spy on Wisconsin QB Colton Joseph; he recorded a sack and two tackles for loss, and took the ball away with Penn State’s third interception of the day.
Rojas coming back was a godsend for this program, and he’s thriving next to Kooper Ebel, who frees him up to play fast and aggressive, even coming off his season-ending injury last year.
Losers
5. D’Anton Lynn
It may be a bit unfair to put D’Anton Lynn and his defense on this list. The group spotted the offense 14 points with turnovers and was all over Colton Joseph in the first half. However, Lynn’s defense had the blown coverage on the game-winning touchdown, and managed just one sack of Joseph all day.
Lynn’s defense is far from the biggest problem with this team. But it should have been good enough to hold on down the stretch.
4. Brett Eskildsen
With Koby Howard out, Penn State needed its Iowa State transfers to step up in the receiving corps. That included Brett Eskildsen, who led Iowa State in receiving last year. Yet, against Wisconsin, Eskildsen was targeted six times and didn’t haul in a single catch. He was leaned on as the vertical element of the passing game, but couldn’t separate and was helpless at the catch point.
3. The backfield
James Peoples is the RB1 for Penn State. He seems to be the only one with any juice in that backfield, and he still averaged just 4.8 yards per carry. Peoples went for 67 yards on 14 carries with a respectable 43% success rate. Carson Hansen rushed for 11 yards on four carries with a zero percent success rate and Quinton Martin Jr. ran for 20 yards on six attempts with a 33% success rate.
Even Cam Wallace got two carries and turned them into four yards. The run game was a concern coming out of Penn State’s glorified preseason, and those doubts were justified.
2. Matt Campbell
Whether it was third-and-long runs or sitting on the ball before halftime with more than a minute, all three timeouts, and the most experienced quarterback in the country, Matt Campbell was unexpectedly conservative in his Big Ten debut as the head coach of the Nittany Lions.
Campbell did what he needed to do to win the game, not spoiling the 14 points Colton Joseph spotted his team with two interceptions leading directly to points. You can pin some of the conservative play-calling on offensive coordinator Taylor Mouser, but not the game management, and because of the game management tendencies revealed themselves, it’s hard to imagine Campbell didn’t pull the strings with Mouser, boxing him into a conservative approach.
It’s not just that Penn State lost. Wisconsin is spending about the same amount as Penn State this year. Talent-wise, there isn’t some huge gap. But Campbell got outcoached by Luke Fickell, who was on a red-hot streak in Madison until very recently (as recently as the moment that game ended). That’s concerning.
1. Rocco Becht
When skeptics of this Penn State team posed the question: why should we believe a team that went 8-4 in the Big 12 last year will suddenly contend for a CFP spot in the Big Ten? It was typically about the overall roster rather than its quarterback. But Rocco Becht did not look like he belonged as the quarterback of a Big Ten offense.
Becht completed just six of his 17 attempts over five yards downfield. That’s not a high threshold at all, and he was not good. He finished averaging 3.9 yards per attempt with just 114 yards on 12/29 passing with an interception, and had multiple passes, including the interception, tipped at the line of scrimmage.
He’s not a big player, he’s not a supreme athlete, he doesn’t have a big arm, and on Saturday, he wasn’t accurate. That’s not a good combination. It came without his No. 1 wide receiver, but it’s unlikely that Koby Howard would have been the difference between a 23% success rate and a capable passing attack.
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