Grading Penn State football after dominating defeat at Northwestern

EVANSTON, ILL. − The most experienced quarterback in the country kept firing to his Penn State football receivers left and right, desperate to rally his suddenly sinking team.

For a second straight week those receivers, more than not, were open, but Rocco Becht could not find them when needed most.

And, once again, Matt Campbell’s Lions lost a game as a betting favorite − losing this decisively on Friday night to the Northwestern Wildcats in the opening of their nearly $900 million new Ryan Field stadium.

Last weekend featured a stunning collapse down the stretch to unranked Wisconsin.

But this 34-13 demolition was a complete failure on both sides of the ball from beginning to end, suddenly giving Campbell and his first-year staff and more than 50 new players plenty of difficult-to-answer questions.

It’s hard to say which side of the ball was worse on this night, which puts Penn State in a place it could never have imagined after its 3-0 start.

Here are your grades from a shockingly inept performance:

Becht was mostly inconsistent and inaccurate for the second straight week, which gave the Lions no hope of a comeback once they trailed by multiple scores.

The shaky run game turned in its worst effort in recent memory with only 48 rushing yards.

Breakdowns at the end of the Wisconsin game were one thing. But this effort against the Northwestern running game was inexplicably awful from the start.

Two Wildcat runners sprinted through open holes left and right, Joseph Hyman running for 162 yards on just 10 carries and workhorse Caleb Komolafe ripping the Lions for 188 yards on 25 attempts.

Not sure where this goes from here.

A busy, positive day of punting again, once again, for first-year starter Nathan Tiyce. A second pretty quiet return night Zay Robinson.

But a second missed field goal from the usually reliable Ryan Barker hurt the most, early on.

The Lions had no answers throughout for Northwestern’s misdirection and fakes in the run game. Over and over again.

If you can’t run the ball or stop the run, you have no chance. There seemed to be few if any positive adjustments at halftime which makes you suddenly begin to think there may be a talent issue too great to overcome.

Has a Penn State team ever been dominated by the likes of this by Northwestern?

This Penn State season is certainly not over but within two weeks you quickly begin to wonder what Campbell and his staff can do to fix this.

Frank Bodani covers Penn State football for the York Daily Record and USA Today Network. Contact him at fbodani@ydr.com and follow him on X, formerly known as Twitter, @YDRPennState.

This article originally appeared on York Daily Record: Grading Penn State football after dominating defeat at Northwestern