When a team loses a close game, lots of decisions get questioned, and Penn State is no exception.
If just one play had gone differently in Penn State’s 24-20 loss to Wisconsin Saturday, perhaps the result would have been different.
One play, in particular, haunts Penn State coach Matt Campbell. It’s play that never happened.
Six seconds into the fourth quarter, Penn State was facing a fourth and one at its own 38, up 20-10.
Campbell has shown that he’s not afraid to go for it in his own territory. He did it against Marshall in Week 1, and it worked.
But trusting the Penn State defense— which was fantastic for most of the day,— Campbell decided to punt.
Penn State ended up losing, and had the offense gone for it, it may not have, and Campbell will be lamenting that as he prepares for Northwestern.
WHAT CAMPBELL SAID
“The third, fourth, and one, should we go for it? Should we not?” Campbell asked rhetorically in his postgame presser. “I felt like we were playing such good defense there that I just didn’t want to put our team at risk. That’ll eat at me.”
Campbell also addressed another decision that, again, wouldn’t be talked about had Penn State won.
With 1:13 left in the first half and Penn State ahead 17-7, the offense went on the ball at the Wisconsin 24.
Add Nittany Sports Now as a preferred source in Google! Click here to add us.Instead of going for another score to end the half, Penn State called two short passes and ran it twice, the last being a run up the middle with James Peoples on 3rd and 7.
Even though the Wisconsin offense didn’t do much of anything until the fourth quarter, when it scored 14 points in 3:31, Campbell was worried enough not to risk it.
“The other thing is they had two timeouts, and I didn’t want to give them the ball back there either at the end of the half,” he said. “When it started negative, I just felt like the biggest thing for us is, let’s get this thing into halftime. Let’s make the corrections, knowing that we had a really significant lead at the point. We can come out, play great defense, get the football back and kind of take the game over.”
WHAT IF?
Campbell isn’t the only one in the Penn State locker room thinking about the 4th and 1.
Peoples, who ended the day with 67 yards on 14 carries to lead the team, feels the play calling was aggressive overall, but admitted he wishes they’d have gone for it on fourth down.
“That’s when we could… I wish we could have got back,” he said. “That we could have went for that fourth and one, for sure. But there was multiple times in that game where I feel like we could have took the momentum back. And you know, I can’t just single it down to the fourth and one. There was plenty of chances.”
Indeed, there were.
Penn State will have more chances Friday night at Northwestern. Kickoff is scheduled for 8.
