Quarterbacks have been a tough thing to come by in recent years in Happy Valley. Penn State has had some talented signal-callers manning the offense, but they’ve struggled to find one who is elite and can rise to the occasion against the best teams in the country.
After all, quarterbacks like Drew Allar and Sean Clifford were marked with the inability to conquer ranked teams, as evidenced by former coach James Franklin’s 4-21 record against them.
Current quarterback Rocco Becht may not have as much talent as some of his predecessors, but his mind was supposed to give him a leg up. However, that wasn’t the case last weekend against Wisconsin, when he arguably had the worst game of his career with the pressure turned up.
The Nittany Lions slowly
but surely let a 17-point lead slip, and Becht seemed to be rattled the entire time. His throws were off the mark, his pocket presence all of a sudden went out the window, and he looked as if he was a deer in headlights.
He has an opportunity to right the ship against some strong opponents coming up, but his performance against the Badgers was not a good sign. Penn State is far too accustomed to its quarterbacks short circuiting when the lights are the brightest, so if that’s what Becht looks like against a run-of-the-mill Big Ten team, what will happen against a team like USC?
Unfortunately for him, he likely won’t have the opportunity to come back to the program next year, so he needs to make the most of the games in front of him. There is still two-thirds of the season left to go, but Becht has a limited amount of time to prove he is a different type of Penn State quarterback.
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This article originally appeared on Nittany Lions Wire: Rocco Becht reinforced Penn State QB stereotype during Wisconsin loss
