We are… not very good.

Penn State football is off to a slow start in Big Ten play this season, coming off back-to-back embarrassing upset losses to Wisconsin and Northwestern.

Happy Valley has taken quite the exception to the lack of quality play on the field, with many Nittany Lions under immense scrutiny.

Very few people have endured more of that criticism than Penn State starting quarterback Rocco Becht, but is this disaster really his fault?

Alexander Underwood: No

Athletic director Pat Kraft hired head coach Matt Campbell in December. The campus buzzed with excitement as the country watched Indiana’s sudden rise to a national championship, giving fans hope the Nittany Lions could rise to the top again.

Folks were delighted that the dog days were over, but times have changed. Were we ever truly at the bottom of college football like we are now? 

Though it is still early to make definitive statements about how Campbell will work out in the end, getting pushed around by Northwestern and failing to do the job at home against Wisconsin are massive red flags.

If folks knew the highly rated recruiting class James Franklin put together would fall apart and be replaced by a group of transfers Campbell brought with him from Iowa State, would making the change still have been worth it?

To me, the dominoes setting up Penn State’s failure in the 2026 season had begun to fall before Becht threw a football for Penn State. 

Blue-chip ratio is a college football metric that shows how many four- and five-star athletes are on a collegiate roster.

This year’s Penn State squad boasts a 31% blue-chip ratio. That number was up to 65% for last year’s team, showing the massive drop-off in quality. 

With much of last year’s team heading out for the pros, almost half of the roster is from Iowa State, another 25% from Penn State, and another 25% from elsewhere.

The clash of cultures, schemes, and regimes has created a major identity crisis that is visible on the field. 

The fan base needs to realize that the Penn State we are used to is out the window. It is almost an entirely new program that will only stray further from the standards set by Franklin and those who came before him. 

The NIL era has created a false pretense that rebuilds do not need to take multiple years. Although you could make significant changes and progress in a year, it only adds to the pressure on everyone on that roster. 

Since landing in Happy Valley, Becht’s NIL worth has shot up to around $2 million. Becht has the age, experience, and money to basically consider him a pro now, which means he has far less leeway for mistakes.

Penn State has 54 new players on its roster this season, 39 of whom the program signed through the transfer portal. Penn State added 10 new staff members during the offseason, nine of them following Campbell during the exodus from Ames, Iowa. 

And through all of this, it was never Becht’s fault.

Becht walked into a situation where almost everything around him had changed. Nearly half of the roster came from Iowa State, while the other half came from the previous Penn State team or other programs around the country.

Becht is simply trying to play quarterback while all of those changes happen around him.

The program changed overnight, but rebuilding a football team does not happen overnight. The reality is that Penn State was never going to look like the Penn State we were used to right away. 

The transfer portal can help replace players, but it cannot instantly replace a program’s identity and foundation. Penn State fired Franklin midway through the 2025 season. This was never simply Becht’s rebuild to fix. 

Kraft was forced to build an entirely new program from the ground up. The lack of continuity is evident in the way this team was assembled.

Becht did not create the circumstances he inherited. He was handed a program already stripped of its foundation and asked to rebuild it immediately. 

The root cause of what has gone wrong so far this season cannot simply be that Becht is that guy. The bigger question is why the program was put in a position where anyone would have been expected to. 

The portal can give you everything you need to rebuild. It just cannot guarantee that all of those pieces will fit together. That was never Becht’s fault.

Brian Kriley: Yes

While it would be disingenuous to say all of the Nittany Lions’ faults fall solely on Becht, it would also be dishonest to say Becht hasn’t been the root of the problem for Penn State on the field.

Yes, this is one of the least talented rosters Happy Valley has seen in some time. Yes, pass protection has been bad, and yes, Becht wasn’t the one to allow over 400 rushing yards to the Wildcats. However, Becht has done this team zero favors over the past two weeks.

Becht has been flat-out bad in Big Ten play so far. There’s no need to sugarcoat it.

There’s only so much an offense can do with a quarterback who’s been almost completely inept over the past two weeks. For the most experienced quarterback in college football, Becht has shown atrocious pocket presence and accuracy.

While offensive coordinator Taylor Mouser isn’t completely off the hook, I almost felt bad for him watching the Nittany Lions against Wisconsin and Northwestern.

Even without wide receiver Koby Howard, Becht has missed plenty of opportunities for explosive plays. Brett Eskildsen could easily have had 100 yards over the past two weeks if Becht had been more accurate in pushing the ball downfield.

Becht seems to have completely lost his confidence since facing Big Ten competition, and even in the thing he’s supposed to excel at — throwing the ball over the intermediate middle — he’s seemingly forgotten how to do.

Becht is certainly not the only player or coach to blame for Penn State’s struggles so far, but he’s missed far too many opportunities for me to sit here and say he isn’t the biggest culprit in the Nittany Lions’ skid.