What the Penn State Nittany Lions Said About Their Loss to Michigan

Penn State coach Matt Campbell firmly shut down any conversation about a quarterback change following the Nittany Lions 21-18 loss to Michigan on Saturday. Though Rocco Becht committed three turnovers, all of which led to Michigan touchdowns, Campbell delivered a strong defense of his starting quarterback.

"I have complete faith in who Rocco Becht is and what he’s about," Campbell said. "Listen, nobody’s more devastated than that guy right now in that locker room. But the reality is, that’s the position he plays."

The Nittany Lions had a tough time describing their fourth straight Big Ten loss. Here's what they had to say at Michigan Stadium on Saturday night.

Penn State coach Matt Campbell

On whether he would consider benching quarterback Rocco Becht: No. ... Obviously Rocco would be the first guy to say he’s got to do a better job taking care of the football. Obviously it was an emphasis, but man, how that guy continues to compete and fight, and gave us a chance even at the end of the football game. He’s got to be better. He will continue to grow and be better, but no, there’s never a consideration from my end.

On what happened with Becht's second interception: I think he’s probably indecisive [about], should he scramble? And all of a sudden Gabe [Burkle] breaks wide open, and the ball is kind of… I think he was in-between. I think it made him late and and behind him, and obviously it was a bad interception. I know he came right off and said, "I should have used my feet." So, tough, tough situation and again, he’ll have to continue to grow from it.

On the difficulty of winning with little margin for error: I think you’re in a game where it’s kind of like the last couple, right? You’re right there to win the game. You’ve got to win in the margins right now, for sure, and we’re not doing that. I think the two areas that we said we had to win the football game [were] taking care of the football and winning the running game. Both things in the second half kind of imploded on us.

On moving forward with Becht despite the mistakes: I have complete faith in who Rocco Becht is and what he’s about. And listen, nobody’s more devastated than that guy right now in that locker room. But the reality of it is, that’s the position he plays. He’s got to continue to grow, continue to be the best version of him. Because, like we said, the margin for error right now is razor thin, right? And you’re going to have to be your best every time you handle the football.

And we’re going to continue to need his best as we move ourselves forward. We’re not giving up on the season, and I think we’re a lot closer to the team we want to be the last eight quarters we played football. We’ve got to demand a pathway forward. It’s great to get into a bye week and have an opportunity to continue to pound away at some of these detail things that are costing us.

On whether he got an explanation of Cael Brezina's first-half tackle that could have led to a safety: Yeah, [the official] said it was a quick whistle. He said he felt like there was a stoppage of play, said that it was really gray call. It was the same, that one and then the one where they called [Brett] Eskildsen on the pick right before half. Oof, you know, I think those are two where it’ll be really interesting to get the feedback back from the Big Ten. But on the safety situation, he said he called it short because he thought it was it was stoppage of progress.

On saying the team has grown despite the losses: I don’t think you can flinch right now. You’re building the foundation of a football program, and to be quite honest with you, the foundation of a program that needs to continue to showcase that it has the ability when it gets hard and when it gets tough. We’re not there, right? I mean, we’ve proven that. Man, the second half of games, you knowm now it was the fourth quarter of a football game. You’re right there. The opportunity to go win the game. We have to work through that, and we have to build that from the inside out.

On how long it will take to get there: Yeah, that’s a great question. I thought we were a lot closer tonight, and you know I think that’s really frustrating from our end of is that we weren’t able to put together the second half that we wanted to put together. From our end of it, we are doing everything in our power to get there as fast as we possibly can.

Quarterback Rocco Becht

On the loss: This game’s super humbling. That’s why you play, that’s why you love it. For me, unfortunately I’ve been in this position before, last year. And I got out of it, so I’m going to be strong. I know this team’s going to be strong and we’re continuing to get better. We’re not having the results we want, but they’ll come.  And I know that for sure.

On what he felt after the loss: Hurt. Disappointment. There’s plays I want back. To be better for my team, I’ve got to be better in the details. We fought, but at the end of the day, whoever’s more detailed wins the game. And unfortunately we weren’t today, but we’re going to continue to grow.

On what's going wrong: I don’t know. I’m out there, I’m playing free, I feel good. Just some things aren’t there for me, they just don’t work out for me, and I get unlucky. It happens. Like I said, it’s humbling. But I’m going to continue to get better and grow.

On his second interception: I tried to get out there to the left late and obviously wasn’t on time with it. Third-and-two, I’ve got to be able to use my legs there. And [the fumble], the guy made a good play coming from behind. Didn’t see him, he popped the ball out and just got unlucky with it. Like I said, it happens, it’s humbling.

On what's been most humbling: That I went through it last year and I wasn’t expecting to go through it again.

Receiver Chase Sowell

On his frustration despite a career-high 151 yards receiving: It’s very frustrating regardless of what I did. I always feel like I could do more to help the team. I like to take a lot of accountability. I know a lot of these guys take a lot of accountability.

On Rocco Becht's demeanor after the game: Yeah, he was devastated. I came in and he really couldn’t even talk. You can see it on his face before we even got to the locker room. It killed him. It’s hard to see that type of stuff because it’s not like he’s trying to do that. I obviously know he’s not trying to go out there and create those plays.

It’s hard to watch a guy that loves a place so much, appreciates a place so much and is trying to do so much for a place. The biggest thing I told him was keep being confident. Keep being you. You don’t have to make these outstanding plays. You don’t have to make the superhero plays. You just have to be Rocco Becht. You just have to make the simple routine plays.

On the first-half injury that briefly knocked him out of the game: I think the [Michigan] guy did a little dirty tackle. He fell straight on my ankle. I was good after it. It scared me more than anything. I just thought it was kind of dirty. We talked about it after. There were no hard feelings.

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