Penn State vs. Houston: 5 Things We Learned from the TicketCity Bowl

Penn State opened 2012 with a loss to the Houston Cougars in the TicketCity Bowl. It was a rough day all around with plenty of blame to share on offense, defense, special teams and with the coaches.

Houston quarterback Case Keenum had his way with the Penn State defense, who struggled with an injured Devon Still in the trenches, and the offense just could never keep up the pace.

Here is a quick look at the game with five observations from Penn State's 30-14 loss to Houston.

1. Case Keenum May Be the Real Deal

Houston quarterback Case Keenum had a record day against Penn State to lead the Cougars to victory. Entering the game, not many considered Keenum to be a legitimate quarterback heading in to the offseason and NFL draft, but he sure handled the critics on Monday.

Keenum sliced and diced the Penn State secondary, ranked fifth in the nation heading in, and never had much problem finding open receivers. Over 500 passing yards does not happen by accident.

2. Rob Bolden Still Has Potential, Probably

Rob Bolden certainly did not have a good performance in his first starting opportunity since the middle of the regular season, and it would be unfair to compare anything he did against Keenum's production. Bolden was intercepted three times and had a few bad passes throughout the game, but he also had a couple of nice passes as well. If Bolden stays in the mix and has a coach who can tap his potential, then perhaps there may still be hope for Bolden in his junior season to get back on track.

It was a rough year for him, and he had many more negatives than positives this season. It will be interesting to see what happens this spring.

3. Penn State Defense Has Been Exposed

Two games in a row Penn State allowed 30 points, and for the third time in the last four seasons Penn State allowed more than 30 points in a bowl game (Houston, Florida, USC).That has to be a somewhat disturbing trend for a team that has been built on a solid defensive foundation for years and tends to enter the bowl season with a well-respected and highly ranked defense.

4. Maybe Penn State Was over Rated

Penn State fans, players and alums were upset when Penn State was passed over by more lucrative bowl games, including the Insight Bowl (Iowa) and Meineke Car Care Bowl of Texas (Northwestern) for teams they beat during the regular season (and Penn State had a better record than those teams as well), but the stain that was left by the Jerry Sandusky scandal was a blow to the Penn State football stock for the bowl games. Perhaps the turnout for the bowl game (as seen in this photo) demonstrates that Penn State never did have the traveling power some felt they had.

But on the field, perhaps Penn State was over rated as a team. The offense managed to score just 14 points against a defense that allowed 34 points to UCLA, 23 to North Texas, 34 to Louisiana Tech, 42 to UTEP, 34 to Rice and 49 to Southern Mississippi.

5. We Still Don't Know Who Should Be the Next Coach for Penn State

The search for a new head coach will continue at Penn State, where Tom Bradley has served as interim head coach since Joe Paterno was fired back in November. Plenty of names have been mentioned, including Bradley. Penn State finished the season 1-3 under Bradley, but it may not all be because of Bradley. Clearly this team was thrown in to an unimaginable situation in November, when the season started to fall apart.

The time line to find a new coach should be coming to an end soon, but it is still anybody's guess just who will eventually take over the program.

Kevin McGuire is a featured columnist for Bleacher Report. Follow him on Twitter, like him on Facebook and add him to your Google+ circle.