Matt Campbell Reveals Biggest Thing for Penn State to Have Success

It's always tough to put all your eggs in one basket when it comes to college football, but quarterback play in the Big Ten, specifically at Penn State, will be just as important as anything else in the country next season. If Penn State wants the season it's looking for, much of that will start with what Rocco Becht does under center.

I don't want to put too much pressure on Becht, either, as winning in Happy Valley is no easy task. Not to throw a shot at Ames, Iowa, but playing at Iowa State and Penn State are two completely different things. 

As I've said in the past, that's like playing basketball at Iowa State and football at Penn State, since they are completely different things to consider. Iowa State is the much better basketball program, while Penn State is a historical football program that expects the best week in and week out.

There's also something to be said about his understanding of the system that he's going to play in. 

Following head coach Matt Campbell from Iowa State, Becht has no excuse not to be at least a really good game manager, and he's also bringing other traits with him, according to Campbell. Campbell stated that he loves him as a leader and was very thankful that he decided to follow him from Iowa State.

“Yeah, I guess I’ve always believed that the head coach-quarterback relationship is so critical to the success of the football team,” Campbell said on Andy and Ari of On3. “I feel like that veteran leadership, that voice in the locker room has to be aligned to what the head coaches believe … I think that’s one of the great joys that I’ve had coaching Rocco.

“And for him to want to be here at Penn State, to want to be a part of this journey, you were just really grateful and humbled by his want to be that and want to do that,” Campbell said. “And I think he’s already done an incredible job of kind of bringing those selfless work ethics here and being a great unifier from, you know, the young men that stayed in this program from Penn State, and kind of unifying all the young men that came on our football team in January, that Rocco has been a great anchor for all of us.”

There's obviously a lot that has to happen over the next few months for us to get a feel for what Becht will look like. I think the early signs have been rather promising, though there's really no guarantee of anything at this moment. 

He's going to have to prove he can play in the Big Ten and, hopefully, continue building on what we've seen so far.