With so much change in Happy Valley this offseason, the big question was: what would Matt Campbell’s version of Penn State football look like? Well, in Week 1, it looked about as good as anyone could have imagined, with a 45-0 win that saw starting quarterback Rocco Becht check out early in the third quarter.
The Nittany Lions were a big winner, but on a more granular level, there were five big winners and a couple of losers in this Week 1 outing.
Winners:
5. Josiah Zayas
The three-star true freshman didn’t seem to be a big part of the plan early in the offseason, but throughout fall camp, it became abundantly clear that defensive coordinator D’Anton Lynn was not going to be able to keep him off the field. Campbell raved about Zayas all month, and that wasn’t just noise. He followed that up by giving Zayas the start in Week 1.
Veteran nickel Zion Tracy played with a splint on his hand, so that could have been part of the reason Zayas got the nod, but he made the most of the opportunity, flying downhill for two tackles for loss, holding up well in coverage, and even the holding penalty he took was a questionable call.
4. Caleb Bacon
After spending spring at linebacker, the former Iowa State linebacker moved to defensive end in fall camp, and he looked like he belonged in Week 1. Bacon’s comfort playing the run and reading and diagnosing concepts served him well with a tackle for loss against the read option, and his sack came because he had his eyes up during his pass rush, detected and pursued the QB, Carlos Del Rio-Wilson, as he went to scramble.
However, it wasn’t just linebacker traits translating; Bacon also had some juice getting off the ball. He was Penn State’s most effective edge rusher in the game and had two other tackles for loss playing the run.
3. Koby Howard
It was Marshall, so that’s a serious caveat, but Koby Howard looks like a difference-making receiver capable of putting together the 1,000-yard season Rocco Becht predicted for him at Big Ten Media Days.
Howard caught six passes for 161 yards and a touchdown, surpassing two of his three freshman-season totals. In the process, he looked dynamic after the catch, controlled at the catch point, and tough to cover down the field. He looked like a WR1.
2. Rocco Becht
Rocco Becht entered the season as the most experienced quarterback in college football, and he looked like it in his 40th career start. He completed 13 of his 18 attempts for 271 yards and four touchdowns before ceding the controls to redshirt freshman Alex Manske in the third quarter.
Becht had great protection, and his receivers made big plays, but he also played about as well as anyone could have possibly hoped. He was in command; he took shots downfield, and after spending much of last season with injuries to both shoulders, he didn’t take hits.
1. Matt Campbell
Campbell has done everything possible to make his debut about anything other than himself; he’s controversially embraced Joe Paterno’s legacy, he walked into the game wearing the same tracksuit as his players, and he practically hid as he ran out of the tunnel for his first game at Beaver Stadium. Yet, by the end of the afternoon, it was his name that fans were chanting after a 45-0 win.
Campbell didn’t have to do much, but the two in-game decisions he did make- going for it on fourth-and-1 deep in his own territory in the first half, and calling a timeout to ice Marshall’s kicker before the half to preserve the shutout- and both worked perfectly.
Losers:
2. The running game
Penn State didn’t run it particularly well, and its running backs didn’t look particularly explosive. Just a 45% rushing success rate and a 5% explosive rush rate. Marshall was selling out to stop the run, so it’s not a terrible sign for the Nittany Lions going forward, especially because Becht and Manske were able to take advantage of that defensive philosophy by pushing the ball downfield. Still, you would’ve liked to see a bit more from that group than3.6 yards and -0.07 EPA per carry.
1. Anyone who keeps calling Penn State Iowa State East
Sure, 23 players transferred from Iowa State, including Becht and his five leading receivers from a year ago. But this is not a team that went 8-4 in the Big 12 last year. As an aside, had Becht not gotten hurt down the stretch, Iowa State may have won more than eight games, but I digress.
This isn’t just a middling Big 12 team because it has players like Howard and other uber-talented holdovers from the Franklin era. They’ll need to show it against Big Ten competition, but this team couldn’t have looked better, and it certainly wasn’t just former Cyclones contributing to the win.
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