EVANSTON, Ill. - New Ryan Field got the full Hollywood treatment Friday night.
The $875 million stadium opened with a light show and fireworks, and for a while the scene around Penn State’s visit to Northwestern looked like the biggest attraction in town. NFL scouts packed the overflow auxiliary press area at kickoff, drawn in by the shiny new venue and an easy trip to Chicago.
By halftime, most of them were gone.
Northwestern had turned the night into a runaway, pounding the Penn State defense on the ground and rolling to a 34-13 win. For Penn State, it was a rough showcase in more ways than one, because the roster on display did not give the scouts much to keep them around.
That’s especially notable for a program that has been one of college football’s steadiest NFL pipelines. Eight Penn State players were drafted last April, and the Nittany Lions have had at least five selections in each of the last nine draft classes. That streak now looks shaky.
One NFC scout put it bluntly: “this is the least-talented Penn State team I can remember.”
Fair or not, Matt Campbell is going to live with that kind of scrutiny every week. Penn State fans and boosters are already measuring him against the hires they wanted more, and the 3-2 start only sharpens the criticism. Campbell deserves plenty of blame for where things stand, but the roster he inherited - and what was lost over the last calendar year - matters too.
He brought a number of Iowa State players with him, which gave Penn State a group that knew his system. But it also meant he was leaning on players who came from Iowa State.
The appeal of Campbell in the first place was that he had won a lot there despite what was widely viewed as inferior talent. The assumption was that he could do the same at a higher level.
So far, that transition has not looked clean. Rocco Becht has not looked like a player making the leap to winning football at a higher level, and the offense has taken another hit with the injury to Koby Howard.
At times, the attack has looked flat-out incapable. Friday night, the defense was even worse, getting bullied by a Northwestern rushing game that entered the night with few bona fides.
Campbell has to own that, but there’s also the reality of what he walked into. One offseason is not much time to rebuild a roster, and the portal and budget may not have offered enough to do significantly better.
The logic behind moving on from James Franklin was that Franklin was a recruiter first and foremost. In the NIL era, that argument carries a different kind of weight. Penn State should be getting the players it can afford to get, not just the ones it can persuade to sign.
Campbell has long been viewed as an Xs and Os coach who can get more out of less. Even when Penn State gets back to fielding a roster that matches its usual level, it will still have to deal with Ohio State and the rest of the Big Ten heavyweights. If Campbell is the answer, he needs the chance to prove he can push a team through that level of competition.
That’s the point of hiring him in the first place.
Of course, fairness and patience are different things. Penn State fans are not going to want to hear that after losing to Northwestern, even if the Wildcats do now have the nicest house on the block.
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Saquon Barkleys latest exit from a game with the Rams was the kind of sight that makes Penn State fans wince, because it came with an apparent hamstring injury and no return to action after the first quarter. For a player whose career has already included a major ACL tear in 2020, any lower-body issue carries extra weight, especially when it involves a part of the body that can linger for weeks before a running back is truly back to full speed.
For Penn State, the timing only adds to the unease. The Nittany Lions are already staring at a difficult stretch ahead with USC and Michigan on the schedule, and recent losses have left the seasons outlook cloudy. Losing even the conversation around one of the programs most recognizable stars to another injury scare is the sort of development that keeps the mood around State College uneasy, even before the next kickoff arrives. [Read more 🡒]
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The setback lands in a week packed with head-turning college football moments elsewhere, from South Carolinas collapse against Kentucky to Michigans offensive trouble after losing to Iowa. Even the broader sport has been in motion, with Foxs Big Noon Kickoff and Barstool Sports parting ways, but for Penn State the focus is closer to home now, where the pressure is already building and the questions around this team are starting to pile up. [Read more 🡒]
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The schedule does not offer much time to linger on the setback. USC and Michigan are next, and those matchups will give Penn State a chance to reestablish itself against high-profile opponents and climb back toward the top 25, but only if the Nittany Lions start looking like a different team than the one that just slipped against Northwestern. [Read more 🡒]