No. 13 Penn State football lost 24-20 to Wisconsin in Saturday's Week 4 contest, and the lack of preparedness on offense was hard to ignore.
In the first three games of the season, they put up over 400 yards of offense, including at least 250 yards in the pass game and 145 yards on the ground per contest. Quarterback Rocco Becht threw at least two touchdowns in each game and the Nittany Lions came off a five-rushing touchdown performance in Week 3 vs. Buffalo.
After seeing a dominant offensive performance in the non-conference slate, the big question was if that was sustainable once in-conference matchups came around. Penn State was bound to run into some issues, especially without wide receiver Koby Howard who emerged as the Nittany Lions' top pass catcher, but the Badgers' defense brought a lot more trouble than anticipated.
On Saturday, in their first Big Ten game, Becht was 12-of-29 for 129 yards and the Wisconsin's defense held Penn State to 248 total yards of offense.
Penn State's defense couldn't bail out an inconsistent Nittany Lion offense
The score became too close for comfort by the end of the fourth quarter, but Penn State's defense looked relatively solid for a majority of the game. The Badgers were forced to punt seven times on Saturday and the blue and white came up with three interceptions.
Winning the turnover battle was huge for Penn State. It certainly lifted a weight off Becht and the offense's shoulders early in the game.
The two touchdowns Penn State got on the board were thanks to interceptions by the defense. In the second quarter, true freshman cornerback Josiah Zayas came up with a huge pick six that put the first touchdown on the board for the evening.
Prior to that, the Nittany Lions only managed a field goal after Becht's pass was knocked down by Wisconsin cornerback Jai'mier Scott. This was after a defensive offsides penalty, too, which put Penn State in a more than ideal situation to get into the end zone. The Nittany Lions couldn't capitalize.
They did, however, take advantage of their defense's second interception. Cornerback Daryus Dixson picked off Badgers quarterback Colton Joseph and returned it to the Wisconsin 11-yard-line. Becht thanked Penn State's defense with a rushing touchdown of his own from three yards out, putting them up 17-0 in the second quarter.
However, the offense learned quickly that these Big Ten games take a full-team effort. The Nittany Lions' defense gave up 24 points despite those big interceptions, the third of which the offense couldn't even convert into points.
There are things to clean up defensively, but the glaring issue was the offense's lack of production. The Nittany Lions couldn't move down the field at all. They punted seven times, four that happened on consecutive offensive drives in the second half.
At the end of the game, after Wisconsin found its first lead of the game at 24-20, Penn State had to scramble with no other choice but to score a touchdown. Becht had a nice throw up the middle to receiver Chase Sowell for 22 yards, but that was it.
The defense did its job (for the most part) and looked on par with its performances from the first three weeks, though it also experienced some Big Ten growing pains. The offense couldn't establish any sort of identity of its own.
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