Against Wisconsin in Week 4, Matt Campbell did one of the worst things a head coach can do. No, not losing at home as a 10-point favorite in your conference opener with a new team after leading by 17 points and getting a touchdown from your defense - though that’s very bad. He took the dreaded ‘think it over’ timeout.
In the third quarter, Penn State marched 56 yards on a field goal drive to extend the lead to 20-10, then forced a three-and-out from Wisconsin. Then, the Nittany Lions got the ball back, and after a five-yard false start penalty from tight end Gabe Burkle, they gained 14 yards on the next three plays, setting up 4th-and-one at their own 38-yard line as the quarter expired.
It seems Matt Campbell still hasn’t made up his mind on his 4th-and-1 decision
Penn State fans questioned the decision in real time, and Campbell seems to still be undecided on what he should have done, which is never a great sign from a head coach whose team got overly conservative down the stretch of its first big game and blew a big lead.
“You can debate the heck out of it, cause I have, to be honest with you, for the last 48 hours, but I still feel like, with the flow of the game, what was going on, that’s really why I thought we’re not going to screw around here,” Campbell said in his Tuesday press conference.
Prior to the quarter break, Penn State left its offense on the field and attempted to get Wisconsin to jump offside. Then, after the TV timeout, he sent his offense back onto the field before quickly calling a timeout and sending out the punt team.
On Tuesday, Campbell admitted that, “Coming out of the TV timeout, I was going to go for it, honestly. We had a play called; we knew what we were going to do. I kind of saw what their alignment was, and for me, I was like, I don’t think we have the advantage here, and thinking about it. I think I was 50/50 on going for it anyways, and I think when I saw what they came out in defensively.”
First, let’s break that part down. Penn State came out in a 21-personnel set with an I-formation, James Peoples behind Finn Furmanek, and two wide receivers in the game: Brett Eskildsen, split wide to the field side, and Chase Sowell tight to the formation into the boundary. Wisconsin matched with four-down defensive linemen, heavily crowded around the A-gaps, a MIKE behind them, and two stand-up linebackers on the edge.
Penn State was showing a run up the middle, and Wisconsin answered with big bodies, though only a seven-man box. Frankly, what more favorable look was Campbell expecting to get in short yardage with the personnel he and offensive coordinator Taylor Mouser put on the field? Wisconsin still had two deep safeties at the time of Campbell’s timeout.
Penn State hadn’t been running the ball well all day, or all season, for that matter, but Campbell knew that before he sent his offense onto the field.
Then, Campbell continued: “I didn’t want to try to draw them offsides, because I didn’t want to have a situation where we could go offsides,” referencing an earlier play in the game when he believed defensive offsides should have been called on Wisconsin and wasn’t.
So, the question here is, what would a five-yard penalty really have done to materially change the situation if you plan to punt anyway? Sure, maybe you run the risk of the ball being snapped when Campbell didn’t like the look, or the message not getting through to Becht not to snap the ball, but the timeout came with 20 seconds on the play clock, five seconds before in-helmet communication shuts off.
Even if you take a delay of game, punting from the 33-yard line isn’t drastically different than punting from the 38-yard line.
Matt Campbell’s lack of game-management conviction is concerning
Ultimately, Penn State forced Wisconsin to punt before returning the ball on the second of three straight Penn State three-and-outs. So that decision isn’t what did the Nittany Lions in, but Campbell’s general conservative approach to the game, continually running on third-and-long and attempting to sit on what at that time was just a 10-point lead, is the reason his team lost, and it started on that fourth down.
Not to mention that his offense could have used that timeout when it got the ball back down four with 1:13 left in the game.
That’s without mentioning Campbell’s unwillingness to give his offense a chance to score before the half with just over a minute and all three timeouts in his pocket. All in all, it was a disaster-class in-game management from Campbell, and it doesn’t sound like he has a good explanation for one of his most confounding sequences, which isn’t particularly encouraging.
Campbell was asked about the decision-making process and, particularly, about having an analytics person, which he dismissed, saying, “The analytics are going to tell you to go for it.” That’s probably true, and if he had gone for it and been stopped and pointed to the analytics, it wouldn’t have felt like a satisfactory answer for most (though it would have for me, and he should have gone for it).
Campbell doesn't necessarily skew conservative, ranking No. 44 in the FBS in fourth-down attempts at Iowa State last year. But he was on Saturday, and it was costly.
It’s a no-win situation when you’re asked to Monday-morning quarterback (or in this case, Tuesday) a decision like that, but Campbell’s answer didn’t inspire much confidence.
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