Take it with a grain of salt— especially given recent events— but Matt Campbell is the favorite for the Penn State head coaching job.
Tyler Donahue of Lions247 reported Thursday night that Penn State “appeared to be working toward a hire” with Campbell.
Not long after, On3Sports confirmed that Campbell had become focus of the Penn State coaching search.
The 46-year-old has been discussed as a candidate before, but for one reason or another, his name didn’t get serious traction in the buzz surrounding the Penn State coaching search until the last minute.
Well, that’s the way things work sometimes.
So now that Campbell is— at the very least— a strong candidate for the job— let’s talk about why he would— and wouldn’t— make sense for Penn State.
WHY CAMPBELL WOULD MAKE SENSE
Campbell just turned 46 and was 45 when he got his 100th win. A lot of people are still looking for their first head coaching job at that age, so that’s quite impressive on Campbell’s end. It’s even more impressive considering that there aren’t a lot of places harder to win at than Ames, Iowa.
When Campbell came to Iowa State, the team had just finished a three-year stretch where it won seven games and lost 25. It wasn’t easy in Campbell’s first season, either, when the 36-year-old went 3-9 in his debut.
Since then, Iowa State has only had one losing season, and last year, Campbell led Iowa State to its best year ever (11-3).
Two days before Campbell’s name started to heat up in the Penn State coaching search, he received a strong endorsement from national insider Josh Pate of On3Sports.
“Penn State should have targeted Matt Campbell weeks ago & instead opted to chase unicorns.”
“What a disaster.”
Pate continued in a separate post.
“Iowa State football has existed 134 years…Campbell has them in the midst of the best 3-year run in program history,” he wrote.
“His DNA blends perfectly with what PSU needs. How are you this blind?”
Add Nittany Sports Now as a preferred source in Google! Click here to add us.Insider Blasts Penn State, Says it ‘Opted to Chase Unicorns’ in Coaching Search
It seems that Campbell has done all there is to do in Ames, and it’d only be logical for him to want to take the next step.
WHY CAMPBELL WOULDN’T MAKE SENSE
Honestly, considering how much of a disaster the Penn State coaching search looked to be, there isn’t much to complain about. If we were to nitpick something, it would be Campbell’s lack of experience at a school of Penn State’s caliber.
At Iowa State, a coach can have five or more losses in seven of his first nine seasons and *rightfully* be considered to have done a great job. At Penn State, that would never fly.
Campbell also has no experience— even as an assistant— at a school close to Penn State’s caliber, and he doesn’t have a recruiting track record that would wow Penn State fans—
Granted, Iowa State doesn’t have nearly the resources that Penn State does.
At the same time, it’s fair to wonder how good of a recruiter Campbell can be based on that track record.
Penn State has two Class of 2026 signees as of day two of the Early Signing period. If Campbell can bring most of his recruiting class with him, it would help, but then again, Iowa State only has the 50th ranked class.
Lastly, the biggest drawback to hiring Campbell would be that he isn’t Terry Smith. In a since-deleted tweet, a Penn State player wrote that 90% of the roster would stand with Smith “and nobody else.”
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If Campbell is hired over Smith, there’s a good chance PSU would lose a lot of players, forcing Campbell to build heavily through the portal.
So 2026 might be rough for PSU and its fans if Campbell is the guy. But realistically, that may have been the case regardless of who the next coach was.
Here is Campbell’s full resume (HC unless noted).
- 2003-04: Bowling Green (GA)
- 2005-06: Mt. Union (OC/OL)
- 2007: Bowling Green (OL)
- 2008: Bowling Green (RGC/OL)
- 2009: Toledo (RGC/OL)
- 2010-11: Toledo (OC/OL)
- 2012-15: Toledo
- 2016-: Iowa State
