ANN ARBOR, Mich. -- Two defeated teams entered, and one left in continued defeat. Michigan football and Penn State both needed a Big Ten win, and it was the Wolverines who got their first, while the Nittany Lions are still searching after four tries.
The maize and blue switched things up after a moribund first half, where they went scoreless and had only 80 yards of offense. However, Michigan exploded in the second half, with 221 yards total, 174 of which were on the ground. With 21 points scored in the final 30 minutes, the Wolverines were able to outlast the Nittany Lions, 21-18.
After the game, Penn State head coach Matt Campbell didn't have a ton to say about Michigan as much as he did about the game in general. Here is everything he said
in his postgame press conference.
Is there any situation where you would go away from Rocco at this point, as a starting quarterback?
No, I think you'll watch the football game, and obviously Rocco would be the first guy to say he's gotta do a better job taking care of the football, and 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 gotta be better. He will be, continue to grow and be better. But no, there's never a consideration from my end.
Matt, did you have a picture of the second interception in particular? What happened from your vantage point on his second interception?
Yeah, I think on the second one, I think he's probably indecisive on should he scramble, and all of a sudden, Gabe breaks wide open. The ball's kinda -- I think he was in between (where) should he have gone, and I think it made him late and behind him. And obviously, it was a bad interception. I think if he had it back, I know he came right off and said, I should have used my feet. So, tough situation and again, he'll have to continue to grow from it.
Matt, all three Michigan scores came off turnovers, I believe. How difficult is it for you guys when you have so little margin for error in those situations?
Yeah, again, I think you're in a game where it's kinda like the last couple, right? You're right there to win the game and you gotta win in the margins right now for sure, and we're not doing that. And I think the two areas that we said we had to win the football game and taking care of the football and win the running game. And both things in the second half kinda imploded on us. We didn't stop the run, and we certainly didn't take care of the football, and those two things cost us what we needed the most.
Matt, I'm sorry, go back to Rocco. I mean, the fact that your senior quarterback, though, is still making some of these mistakes at inopportune times. I mean, how do you kinda move him forward and this offense forward when he's playing like this?
Yeah, and I still think you saw the offense, I think, has continued to grow in terms of they're moving the football, the finish. I think the ability to make those momentum plays, we have to be better. And 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. And he's gotta 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 gonna continue to need you as best as we move ourselves forward.
And we're not giving up on the season or, man, the team, where I think we're a lot closer to the team we wanna be. The last eight quarters we played football, and we gotta 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 detailed things that are costing us.
Yeah, Matt, did you get an explanation on the play that looked like a safety? It looked like it might have been a safety. And just what was your view of that?
Yeah, he said it was a quick whistle. He said he felt like if there was a stoppage in play, he said it was a really great call. It was the same, that one and then the one where they called Eskildsen on the pick right before half. Where, I think those are two, 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, cuz he thought it was a stoppage of progress.
As you go into this bye week, you talk about some of those details, and you're seven weeks into the season now. What do you have to do during the bye week to shore some of those things up at this point?
Well, I think the only way you do it is you keep practicing. And I think you've seen this team grow immensely in the last two weeks. And the reality of it is, obviously a lot of change and guys starting to really settle in to what's being asked of them. And so I think we gotta continue to pound away at the fundamentals in detail. There's a lot of season left. There's a lot of football left for us to grow.
And again, my focus and sole focus is on this team, these seniors, this team, continuing to lay a foundation of the way we wanna play football, the style of football we wanna play, and who we wanna become. And we have to demand a pathway forward.
Since Koby Howard has been out, it looks like, other than Chase, it's been a struggle for some of your skilled players to create either big plays or explosive plays. Do you agree with that and with the bye week? How important is it to get more guys involved, maybe down the field? It just seems like Chase is the only guy that's really threatening defenses.
Yeah, I don't know if I totally agree with that. I would say, obviously, Chase is the guy that has certainly showed up and has had the opportunity. But I think Brett's made some plays down the field, for sure. I think the reality is those two have gotten the bulkload of playing time since Koby's been out. I think Rob had a big game last week. I think Ben continues to show up.
So I do think we have playmakers, and I think Rocco has done a decent job this year. It's just Chase has played really good football, to be quite honest with you, the last two weeks. And I'm really proud of what that guy has done. And obviously, yes, Koby is a playmaker. And when he's out there, we'll certainly have more threats on the field when he's with us. But I don't feel like those other guys have let us down in any way, shape, or form.
You've talked a lot about this growth and moving forward. But how do you square growing as a team, improving with not having these results to show for it?
Well, 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, and again, we're not there, right? I mean, we've proven that.
Man, the second half of games, now it was the fourth quarter of a football game. You're right there, an opportunity to go win the game. Man, we have to work through that, and we have to build that from the inside out. And that's what we're gonna do. We're not gonna waver from that, and there's no excuses.
We're not where we wanna be. But I do believe this group is continuing to pound away, and the way we've practiced, the way we continue to grow inside our walls has been huge, and we'll see if we can keep doing it, right? Because that'll be a challenge, right? And obviously, we're in a world where results certainly are critically important. We're not there where we wanna be to get the result, why? And can we continue to find a pathway to get where we wanna go and who we wanna become?
How long will it take you to get there?
Yeah, that's a great question. I thought we were a lot closer tonight, and I think that's really frustrating from our end of it that we weren't able to put together the second half that we wanted to put together. And again, from our end of it, we are doing everything in our power to get there as fast as we possibly can.
This article originally appeared on Wolverines Wire: Penn State coach Matt Campbell explains what went wrong vs. Michigan
