Why Penn State's Matt Campbell Avoided Penalty Talk on Wisconsin's Winning TD

Penn State coach Matt Campbell wouldn't go there. Asked his view of Wisconsin's go-ahead touchdown last Saturday, Campbell pointed to his team's execution before that play rather than the potentially uncalled penalty on it.

"We put ourselves in a situation where we left it to chance instead of taking care of the situations that we had the ability to take care of and executing when we need to execute," Campbell said Tuesday at his weekly press conference. "That's how I would respond to it. That's really more my thought than it is, man, what do you think of that [play]?

"I think some of those things are bang-bang things, but you let it get to a bang-bang thing instead of taking care of the things that you could control to take care of."

Wiscsonsin scored two touchdowns in the final 4 minutes of its 24-20 win over the Nittany Lions, the last of which brought gasps from the crowd. Jacob Harris, Wisconsin's 265-pound tight end, created tons of space in Penn State's secondary, to the point that he about 50 free yards to the end zone for the go-ahead touchdown.

In the process of getting open, Harris appeared to run through Penn State safety Marcus Neal Jr. After the game, Campbell said that Neal "fell." But replay showed contact initiated downfield by Harris.

DID THAT JUST HAPPEN?!
ONCE DOWN 17-0, THE BADGERS LEAD 24-20!

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Coaching his first Big Ten game at Penn State, Campbell clearly didn't want to wade into criticism of conference officiating. Instead, he found moments before the touchdown upon which Penn State didn't capitalize.

That included an offensive three-and-out following Tony Rojas' fourth-quarter interception, Penn State's fourth of the game. It included settling for a field goal in the first quarter when Penn State had first-and-goal at the Wisconsin 8-yard line. And it included Wisconsin's 2nd-and-19 conversion deep in its own territory on its first touchdown series of the fourth.

"We left it to chance," Campbell said. "That's where flow of the game [comes in]. Man, you had them, you had opportunity to [take control of the game]. There's like these four situations that continue to go in my head.

"... Even that [Harris touchdown] is third-and 13, right? We can make every excuse. Man, [then] there's a bang-bang play. Coulda, woulda, shoulda."

"We left it to chance," Penn State coach Matt Campbell said Tuesday when asked about potential pass interference on Wisconsin's game-winning touchdown.

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Meanwhile, Campbell owned the loss from a coaching standpoint, saying the Nittany Lions played a defense-and-field-position game at times rather than taking some more aggressive swings on offense. However, Campbell also said that the Nittany Lions were unable to get into a consistent rhythm offensively.

"We got into a good lead, and then I think you were kind of like, 'Let's keep playing field position," Campbell said. "I think maybe some of that came back to bite us at the end of the football game.
By no means do I feel good about how we maybe played the second half of the football game from a tempo [perspective] and how we attacked it. I think some great learning lessons for all of us moving forward."

Penn State running back said that the loss might have been what the team needed. Meanwhile, the Nittany Lions have a short week to prepare to face Northwestern on the road Friday night.

"Here's what I really appreciate about our staff and what I really appreciate about our kids," Campbell said. "I don't think there's one person that left the locker room Saturday night and felt like, man, we've done enough.

"How can we continue to raise our level of either preparation or detail, whether it's me as the head football coach in terms of how we're practicing and preparing our team, whether it's the execution and detail that us as coaches are continuing to prepare our players, or our players' preparation process? I think all of those things are constantly growing early in the season."

"Offensively, we just couldn't find a flow in the game," Penn State coach Matt Campbell said about his team's loss to Wisconsin.

Here's Campbell on getting it back.

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