Penn State football and new coach Matt Campbell thought they had it figured out.
Campbell brought receivers coach Noah Pauley with him from Iowa State, and it looked like Pauley would be the man to lead PSU’s receivers room into the start of a new era.
It didn’t turn out that way.
On Feb. 5– just a day after speaking with PSU’s beat reporters for the first time– Pauley accepted a job to become the receivers coach of the Green Bay Packers.
So Campbell and company had to look again, and less than two weeks later, they found their man.
That man is Kashif Moore.
Like Pauley, Moore had a different plan for 2026. The UConn receivers coach was going to follow former Huskies’ HC Jim Mora Jr. to Colorado State.
But when Penn State came calling, Moore listened and eventually took the job.
“It was an interesting process, I’ll be honest with you,” Campbell told reporters Tuesday at his first spring practice press conference. “You know, I think the one thing that I’ve found as a head coach is it’s really great to go through the interview process. Even sometimes when you think you may know who you want to hire, I think sometimes when you go through the interview process, and you get to hear the coaches be teachers, that’s really big for me. And I guess I’ve always had a philosophical approach of how do you teach the room and how do you develop?
Campbell pointed out that he comes from a school in Iowa State that was known as a “developmental program.”
Add Nittany Sports Now as a preferred source in Google! Click here to add us.The top high school players in the world weren’t options for Campbell and company at Iowa State, so the staff had to work around that by making sure they nailed player development.
Moore’s had to do the same thing, with his coaching stops being at Wesleyan (wide receivers), Cornell (running backs), Albany (receivers), and UConn (receivers).
This path intrigued Campbell, as did the fact that Moore initially didn’t plan to be a coach.
“He started, you know, not in football after he got done playing in the NFL,” Campbell said. “Not really coaching football. You know, he used his degree was in business and (he) really was quite successful. And then found his love back for coaching and knew that he wanted to give back and was purposeful.
Of course, Moore wouldn’t be Penn State’s receivers coach if he couldn’t develop receivers.
“I think if you watch the production, the production of his receivers,” Campbell said. “Obviously, the young man that’s going to be a high draft pick for UConn.”
Campbell is referring to Skyler Bell.
Bell played for Moore during all three of Moore’s seasons at UConn, with 2025 being the best one. He ended the season with 1,278 yards and 13 touchdowns on 101 receptions, being named a finalist for the Biletnikoff Award, presented annually to the nation’s top receiver.
Bell could have shown his skills at a bigger school, but he stayed at UConn, which Campbell noticed.
(Bell) stayed with Kashif, you know, which I think says a lot in today’s world,” Campbell said. “Was highly sought after, I think, last year after what he did as a junior (860 yards, five touchdowns, 50 catches). And you’ll watch what he did as a senior was really impressive. I think he’ll be a first- or second-round type draft pick. And so you got to see some videotape evidence of his teaching as well. So just think all those things fit, to me, what we were looking for.”
It all starts with recruiting, and Campbell feels Moore checks the boxes there, too.
“If you look all the way back to our days at Toledo, I think we’ve always had great receivers because we’ve always known what we’re looking for,” Campbell said. “We know what the X receiver has to be able to do. We know what a slot receiver has to have the ability to do, and we know what a Z receiver has the ability to do. So I think we always look for those traits in the recruiting process, and then can we develop that young man into what we’re looking for?
Overall, Moore had what Campbell and Penn State wanted, both as a coach and a person.
“I think just who he is as a man,” Campbell said. “His wife, he’s a good father and just what he was about. I think all those things were a great fit for us.”
