In Week 4, after Penn State took a 17-0 lead over Wisconsin, Matt Campbell coached like he had the game won. His offense went into a shell, and his defense slowly let the lead dissipate until, suddenly, his team fell to 0-1 in Big Ten play and kicked off a four-game losing streak.
In Week 10, after Penn State took a 28-6 lead into halftime, Matt Campbell’s team continued to throw the ball, stayed aggressive on fourth down, and yet they let the lead dissipate until, suddenly, it was 28-25 with a little over seven minutes left in the fourth quarter. This time, though, the Nittany Lions slammed the door with a game-clinching 70-yard drive on the back of a newfound run game.
After the win, Campbell praised his quarterback, Rocco Becht, for exuding poise, even as he completed just five passes for 47 yards in the second half. But he also brought up the Wisconsin collapse and, when pressed about it, admitted he did things differently this time around.
“First of all, as a head football coach, lead. Don’t sit back. Right. And just assume it’s going to happen,” Campbell said definitively. “I think the biggest thing for me was trying to help our guys regain their poise. Don’t just want them to have poise, go lead them to have some poise, and help them get through it.”
It was far from perfect in the poise department, as Campbell readily admitted, and the lead was bigger, which could get lost in the story of this statement road win for the Nittany Lions. But it was better. They did get it across the finish line. And at every turn, this program appears desperate to seek out improvement anywhere it can be found.
Matt Campbell doesn’t exclude himself from his program’s developmental ethos
Maybe it’s all lip service. Campbell was an FBS head coach for 15 years before he arrived at Penn State, so you better believe his coach speak is well trained. But as that 16th-year head coach, Campbell has been very open about his and his team’s shortcomings, and the difference between allowing Wisconsin to score late with a glaring coverage bust and salting seven minutes off the game clock to lead Penn State to a win as an underdog for the first time since 2021 isn’t nothing.
Campbell found ways for his football team to get better throughout this season: Developing a run game that is best suited to his roster’s skill set, manufacturing a bit of pass rush for a front seven largely devoid of difference makers, and finding better situations for his quarterback to succeed. Everything is about development, and that message lands a lot better if the guy espousing it isn’t exempt.
There’s a lot to take from this game, and not all of it is good. Still, this team is getting better, and it’s getting better results. Now, after going into Seattle and getting a win against, albeit, another struggling Big Ten team, there is a real path to 8-4.
Would that be a misleading record? Almost definitely. But it would also be a whole lot better than losing games to inferior opponents down the stretch. Just so long as it doesn’t trick Campbell and his staff into believing in their season-long growth a bit too much and not aggressively upgrading the talent on the roster.
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