The reaction to Penn State football’s loss to Wisconsin in its Big Ten opener has been sharply critical of Matt Campbell’s second-half coaching.

The Nittany Lions blew a 17-0 lead to the Badgers, and much of that came from Campbell coaching to not lose the game rather than deliver the final blow.

One of the biggest missed opportunities and head-scratching decisions was Campbell’s decision not to go for it on 4th-and-1 from Penn State’s own 38-yard line to open the fourth quarter.

The Nittany Lions lined up to go for it, but burned a timeout after the fourth-quarter television break and elected to punt.

“I just felt like that was really the decision-making piece of it and I really didn’t want to screw it up,” Campbell said Wednesday. “Again, I think you can debate the heck out of it, because I have, to be honest with you, for the last 48 hours.

“But I still feel like with the flow of the game, what was going on, that’s where I thought, ‘You know what? We’re not going to screw around here.'”

Campbell outlined his thought process and said he wanted to give the defense an opportunity to make a play and get the ball back instead of risking giving the Badgers a short field.

The two teams traded punts on the next two drives before linebacker Tony Rojas picked off Wisconsin quarterback Colton Joseph with 8:09 remaining. The Penn State offense failed to convert points off the turnover, which sparked the Badgers’ comeback.

They got into the end zone on their next two drives.

The offense’s inconsistencies doomed the Nittany Lions, but Campbell and the rest of the coaching staff’s restraint in play calling didn’t allow for much growth.

“I think a little bit of the football game, you’re playing with such a lead early on that you don’t want to screw it up, and you’re playing such great defense, and you’re putting yourself in such a great situation that you felt like the flow of the game, the turnovers, you just wanted to keep playing field position a little bit and continue to put yourself in a great situation,” Campbell said.

The attempt to simply preserve the lead and not fully attack to put the game out of reach is something Penn State fans voiced their disappointment in on social media following the loss.

Campbell coached scared in his first Big Ten game, and he paid a hefty price for it.

The path forward is murky, but Campbell can do little besides regroup and try to correct those misfires.

“From my end of it, the positive I take is, this was not an attitude and effort issue. This is not, ‘Are kids playing hard?’ This is not, ‘Are kids laying it on the line and playing their tails off?'” Campbell said. “I think a lot of these things are correctable issues, where that can be coaching, that can be schematics, and yet that’s also some detail in the players’ execution that needs to be better.”

It’s hard to correct a lot of things when you don’t really have answers to the big question marks in the running back and wide receiver rooms, though.

Penn State trotted out all four of Carson Hansen, James Peoples, Quinton Martin Jr., and Cam Wallace just in the fourth quarter against Wisconsin.

No wideout had a catch besides Chase Sowell, who reeled in six balls for 70 yards.

How can Penn State aim to practice for tough in-game situations when it doesn’t even have a clear RB1 or a genuine replacement for Koby Howard while he recovers?

Campbell and Mouser preach trust. Where was the trust on that 4th-and-1, even if Wisconsin didn’t give a good look and even if the offense wasn’t having its day?

Risk-taking is a part of football. You play for the win, not for field position.

“The gut check is, this is a game that you had the opportunity to win. You had every opportunity to go finish the football game and we didn’t do it,” Campbell said. “I think it’s more of that to me than it is this panic of, ‘Man, are we good enough or any of these things?’ It’s a matter of, ‘How do we get ourselves to be our best for four quarters?'”

Despite the less-than-spectacular coaching and execution on Saturday, Campbell’s goal remains the same: ensuring that his players become the best versions of themselves that they can be. Their next chance to do so will be at Northwestern on Friday.