UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — For the second straight season, the Penn State Nittany Lions football team lost its homecoming game. On Saturday, the Wisconsin Badgers lived up to their nickname, as they badgered Penn State after falling behind by three scores.
Wisconsin, which had lost to Penn State six consecutive times, scored with 1:13 left on the clock, and Nittany Lions quarterback Rocco Becht threw three straight incompletions from the Badgers’ 32-yard line, handing the visiting team a 24-20 upset victory in front of 108,014 spectators at Beaver Stadium.
Penn State head coach Matt Campbell said after the game, “We just really struggled to find a move. I think in the first half we were backed up and even got to the goal line and never got in to score. I feel like it led to the second half of the football game at the same spot. We’ve got the players and people to do it, but we’re going to have to make it right. I feel like we have a lot to play for.”
THE GAME: What matters is how you finish, not how you start. For Penn State, it couldn’t have been a better start, even though the offense struggled throughout the entire game. After each team traded punts, the Nittany Lions took over on a short field following a nice punt return by Zay Robinson that gave Penn State the ball at the Wisconsin 39-yard line. The Lions got as far as the 4-yard line before settling for a field goal by Ryan Barker.
The teams traded punts again, but after Penn State relinquished possession, Penn State cornerback Josiah Zayas stepped in front of a Colton Joseph screen pass and returned it 51 yards for a touchdown to give the Lions a 10-0 lead.
On the Badgers’ next offensive series, lightning struck twice as Joseph threw an interception into the arms of Daryus Dixson, who ran it back to the Wisconsin 11. Three plays later, Becht kept it and ran three yards for the touchdown that gave the Nittany Lions a 17-0 lead.
Perhaps the turning point of the game came with 1:18 left in the first half when the Badgers hit paydirt on a 7-yard touchdown run by Joseph.
The entire complexion of the game changed in the third quarter, in large part due to an interception of a Becht pass that was tipped at the line of scrimmage and hauled down by Charles Perkins at the Penn State 25. A 17-point deficit was shaved to 17-10 after a 34-yard field goal.
The Nittany Lions responded with a 75-yard, 13-play drive culminating in a 37-yard field goal and a 20-10 lead with 3:53 remaining in the third quarter.
However, Penn State’s offense fizzled out. The Lions had to punt on their next three possessions, while Wisconsin cut the deficit to 20-17 at the 3:31 mark of the fourth quarter when Joseph threw an 11-yard touchdown pass to Eugene Hilton Jr. Then, following another Penn State punt on a 3-and-out, the Badgers drove 85 yards in five plays, with the big play coming on a 72-yard catch and run by Jacob Harris with only 1:13 remaining in the game.
THE NUMBERS: Wisconsin amassed 200 yards in the fourth quarter and finished with 355 total yards compared with 233 by Penn State. The Nittany Lions ran just one less play than the Badgers (66 to 65) but averaged almost two fewer yards per play. Becht finished the game 12 for 29 for 114 yards, an interception and he was sacked twice. Chase Sowell was Penn State’s leading receiver with 70 yards on six receptions, with a long catch of 22 yards. James People ran for 67 net yards on 14 carries. The Badgers had 18 first downs, while the Nittany Lions picked up 12 first downs. Neither team did well on third downs, with Wisconsin going 4-for-15 on third down conversions and Penn State going 7-for-19. The win was Wisconsin’s first against Penn State since 2011 and its first at Beaver Stadium since 2003.
THE NEXT GAME: Penn State (3-1, 0-1 Big Ten) will try to pick up the pieces when it plays Northwestern on Friday at 8 p.m. in Evanston. The game will be televised on FOX.
