The Wisconsin Badgers have a major challenge on their hands in Week 4, as they’ll take on the No. 13 Penn State Nittany Lions on the road in Happy Valley on Saturday evening.
The Nittany Lions are coming off a blowout 55-13 win over Buffalo after beating Temple and Marshall to start 3-0 under new head coach Matt Campbell. There are a lot of new faces at Penn State, as Campbell brought over a significant group from Iowa State, including quarterback Rocco Becht, who has started the season with 751 passing
yards, nine touchdowns, and zero interceptions.
The Nittany Lions were also able to retain a good amount of talent from the previous year, including sophomore receiver Koby Howard. After playing sparingly as a freshman, catching seven passes for 133 yards, Howard has broken out in a big way in Year 2.
He leads all Penn State receivers with 12 catches for 344 yards and two touchdowns, with his 28.7 yards-per-catch figure ranking third nationally. He’s got nearly triple the receiving yards of the next Penn State wideout, Chase Sowell, and has been the go-to target for Becht through three games.
Additionally, Howard’s 344 receiving yards rank seventh in college football.
On Monday, though, head coach Matt Campbell revealed that Howard suffered an injury on a touchdown catch against Buffalo in Week 3, and his status is unknown for this weekend against Wisconsin.
“We don’t know exactly where he’ll be by the end of the week,” Campbell acknowledged after sharing that he got ‘dinged up’ over the weekend. That would be a big loss for Penn State, which would look to rely more on freshmen receivers Zay Robinson and Amarion Jackson behind starters Chase Sowell and Brett Eskildsen.
The first injury report of the week will now come on Wednesday, as it is a conference game. Howard will be questionable.
