Penn State HC Matt Campbell Mercilessly Defends Poor QB Play

Penn State head coach Matt Campbell will go through hell and high water for his guy Rocco Becht. 

Now, this is absolutely how a head coach should protect his quarterback, and any signal caller would dream of support like this, but it is reaching unbearable levels. 

In Penn State's three-point loss to the wounded Michigan Wolverines, Rocco Becht turned the football over three costly times that led to the Nittany Lions' loss. Matt Campbell was asked about it in his early-week press conference, and as we would expect, he went to bat for his quarterback.

He said that out of the three turnovers, two of them were on the quarterback. He continued to go on and on about how the entire offense needs to be connected and that even with the turnovers, there were still some really great things that happened in the game. He referenced a couple of long pass connections in tough spots.

However, he continues to not address one of the main issues that this team is experiencing this year: quarterback play.

In four Big Ten games, Becht is completing less than 60 percent of passes, has thrown just three touchdowns and thrown five interceptions to go along with those. He has added 52 yards on the ground and one touchdown.

Simply put, it is just not good enough. There is no other way to cut it other than the fact that he is simply not playing good football.

From a former quarterback's perspective, I appreciate the way that Campbell goes to bat for his guy; I really do. However, from the outsider's perspective, it is getting to be a bit much because he is not addressing the problem. 

Marginally better quarterback play and the Nittany Lions would have won three of the four games that they lost. It doesn't even have to be significantly better; if they just got a little bit better, they would have beaten Wisconsin, USC, and Michigan. With one loss to Northwestern, the Nittany Lions would be 6-1 with postseason hopes in the foreground.

Instead, Matt Campbell has dug his heels into the ground with Rocco Becht, and he is not budging, not at all. The more he continues to do it, the more it is going to turn a lot of the fanbase off what he is doing and how he is leading the program.

He is now in a very peculiar spot with the quarterback and with this team. It will be interesting to see his response if this keeps up, if there is a pivot somewhere in the future, or if he is going to just ride this out.