Penn State beat Temple 27-9 on the road Saturday, and if you only look at the final score, you'd think this was exactly what a 24-point favorite should do to a Group of Five opponent. It wasn't. For a half and a half, Temple made Matt Campbell's team look like what it actually is right now: a rebuild still learning how to close out games.
Temple scored first and led for a stretch. Penn State drove into the red zone three separate times in the first half and came away with three points total. You can live with a slow start against a ranked team. You can't live with a slow start against a team well outside your talent class and still call the offense fine.
The real story out of Philadelphia is that Penn State needed a two-minute drill right before halftime just to avoid trailing at the break, not the 18-point final margin. Rocco Becht capping an 83-yard drive with a touchdown pass to Benjamin Brahmer, making it 10-3, was the actual turning point, not anything that happened after halftime. The second Becht-to-Brahmer touchdown, the Chase Sowell score, the Barker field goal, all of it came in the second half, Penn State finally cashing in on a talent gap it had spent two-plus quarters ignoring.
I get the counterargument. Becht threw three touchdown passes, and Penn State outgained Temple by more than a hundred yards. Campbell picked up his first road win as head coach, a real marker for a program that fired its previous coach and rebuilt nearly half its roster through the transfer portal this offseason. Those things matter. But they matter more as proof the talent is there than proof the execution is there yet, and execution is the whole point of a rebuild's first year.
Temple deserves credit too. This wasn't a team that got run off the field for four quarters. The Owls blocked a Penn State field goal, and their line made Penn State earn every yard for long stretches. Keveun Mason found room on the ground before Penn State's size finally wore the Owls down. Temple's only touchdown came late.
Where does this leave Penn State through two games? Encouraged, not comfortable. Becht looks like the experienced quarterback Campbell brought him in to be, and the fourth-quarter version of this offense looked like a Big Ten contender. The first-half version looked like a team still learning how to finish, and that's the version that shows up against teams that aren't 24-point underdogs. If it doesn't get cleaned up soon, this game becomes the blueprint for someone with real talent to actually beat them.
