University Park, Pa. – The Matt Campbell debut can be considered an extreme success following a 55-13 win over Buffalo to complete the non-conference slate of the 2026 regular season.
Here is everything Campbell said postgame:
I cleaned the transcript for grammar, readability and publication while preserving Campbell’s voice and meaning. I also removed most filler words, false starts and transcription glitches without making the answers sound overly polished.
Q: It’s been a long time since you’ve opened up conference play next week. Where do you think the team is heading into conference play?
Matt Campbell: Not where we would need to be, but I think we’re a team that has certainly grown in different areas each week. We’re still a team, in my opinion, that has so much ability and room to grow.
We were salty at times today in some things that were focal points for us, and then we grew in some areas that were really critical focal points.
Again, this is college football, and I think our ability to grow from Week 3 to Week 4 will be really important. I appreciated our urgency and the way we played with a sense of physicality. Our detail, some of those penalties, is obviously really disappointing.
Q: Brock Riker played the first two series, and then you made a change at center. What was the reason behind that? And with Rap, was it the same situation?
Campbell: Both of those guys were just kind of dinged up. We really didn’t know exactly where we would be with Brock going into the game.
We wanted to at least get him out there. It still didn’t feel like he was at 100%, and I just didn’t feel like it was the right situation to leave him in the game.
Plus, I think the other thing is Vae has done a really good job. You get an opportunity at the center spot, can you go in and execute? I thought he was one of the highlights of today. I thought he played outstanding.
To know you’ve got two guys who can go in there and play is huge. Obviously, Brock is really, really special to this team, and it was more precautionary.
Really, the same thing with Rap. Rap could have gone back into the football game. By the time Rap (Rappleyea) got dinged up, I just felt like that was the right situation for the betterment of the football team.
Q: How would you assess the running game and the running backs? Did any of the four running backs stand out to you today?
Campbell: I think they all had a couple of great moments.
It was great to see Quinton really have a great moment. If you ask him, he would probably tell you it was maybe one of his best weeks of practice. I think he took that into the football game and was able to execute at a really high rate.
All four guys really did some great things with the ball in their hands in some critical moments. I thought there was growth there.
But I also thought there was growth because there was some really good blocking on the perimeter. The ability to get the ball out in space and allow those guys to make some plays happen in space was really awesome. I thought all of those guys did some great things.
Q: Through three games, your pass defense has been strong. You probably knew the corners and safeties were going to be a strength, but how much does that group allow you to do defensively? You held them to one conversion on third down, and their top receiver didn’t really get going until late.
Campbell: I would still tell you it starts with defending the run.
That group is really talented, and they’ve played a lot of football. You talk about Zion (Tracy) playing a lot of football, AC (Audavion Collins) playing a lot of football, Jeremiah Cooper playing a lot of football, Marcus Neal playing a lot of football and Jahmir playing a lot of football.
Those guys have played a ton, and they have some really talented young guys behind them. It gives you some great rotation. It gives you the ability to rotate fresh bodies in and not expect those guys to play 60 snaps in a game.
But I still go back to this: If you’re going to play great pass defense, you’ve got to be able to play great run defense.
I feel like that has probably been one of our strengths. We were better today on first down and second down. I didn’t think we were great last week against Temple. I thought we made a great improvement there and got ourselves into some great passing situations.
Then you’ve got to be able to help those guys out with some pressure, and I thought we were able to do that again today.
Q: You guys had some drops today on both sides of the ball. Do you think you’ve generally caught the ball pretty well up to this point?
Campbell: Yeah, I think so. I’d have to go back and look at some of those drops.
We dropped a snap, which isn’t very good, so the quarterback better start working on it, too.
From an offensive standpoint, I thought Koby went up and I don’t know if anybody can catch a ball as well as that guy. I think Chase’s growth has been exceptional. He made a couple of great plays down the stretch.
Defensively, AC had his hands on a ball and had a chance for a great finish. We had another chance for a great finish.
Obviously, those are areas where we can all grow. But I do think we’ve been catching the football with a lot of consistency, at least through the early part of the season.
Q: There were a few more penalties than the last couple of weeks, but you’ve kept turnovers to a minimum and done well with field position. Zay Robinson also had a nice day in the return game. How encouraged are you by some of those areas heading into the Big Ten schedule?
Campbell: The penalties are really disappointing. Those are things where it comes down to fundamental technique at the point of attack.
Add Nittany Sports Now as a preferred source in Google! Click here to add us.Really, all of those other than one selfish penalty at the end of the football game, which can’t happen were technique issues.
When you’re talking about playing the way physically that we want to play, you’ve got to be elite at the finish. We weren’t that today. Those are things where we’re going to have to demand a pathway forward and grow.
In some of those other areas of complementary football, when you’re talking about winning field position and being a great special teams unit, even just being able to get a first down on a punt return, those things are all there.
We’ve been able to do that in the first three games. Can you do that as we continue to go forward? It’ll be really interesting to watch as those groups continue to grow.
We’ve got really good players. I think our kids really believe in special teams and the value of that.
Then there’s ball security. The turnover margin, I think, is now plus-five on the season, which is trending where we need it to be.
When we talk about how you win football games, it all starts with the ball. If you can walk away from a game and win the turnover margin, you’ve got a chance to put yourself in a really great position to win football games.
We’re doing some really good things. But, as you would want and as I think we all want, there has to be a pathway forward. You can see a bigger vision for where this team can go, and we have to continue moving toward that.
Q: Koby is averaging around 25 yards per touch. What does having that kind of dynamic player do for you offensively?
Campbell: The more guys you can have who are threats to the defense with the ball in their hands, the better you’re going to be especially if you have a guy who can distribute the football to those guys in the right moments and the right situations.
Obviously, Koby and I know I’ve talked about this a lot none of it surprises me because of how I’ve watched him work.
I would still tell you that even tomorrow morning, he’ll be the first guy in the facility. He’ll probably beat three-fourths of the coaching staff there. He’ll be catching off the JUGS machine.
He’s that kind of football player. He has this conviction to be great.
We talk about this all the time: There’s a difference between good intentions and intentionality. Good intentions get you beat. You need intentionality in your process, and Koby is a guy who lives that.
What he’s done is, there are some guys who have seen his success and they’re saying, “Man,” and now they’re kind of joining him in the mornings.
I think that’s what great players do. Great players bring others with them, and that’s where I give him a lot of credit.
I do think he certainly has recognized where he’s at. Then to have Ben, Jay and some of these other guys really showing up and proving they can do things with the ball in their hands, those things are exciting.
We want to continue to work to grow that group forward, but they’re doing a great job so far.
Q: At halftime, you honored the 40th anniversary of the 1986 national championship team. How special is it for you to honor a national championship team in your first year leading this program?
Campbell: It was really rewarding.
After I got done talking to our team last night, before I did bed check, I got a chance to go over and thank that group.
In the early parts of me being here, having these players and these teams available to us ties into all the things we’re talking about.
We talk about, “How do you prepare when it matters the most? What does that look like?”
That 1986 team, I mean, 1985 was probably gut-wrenchingly hard. You go and play that game and lose the national championship, but you come back.
Then you hear the John Shaffer story, how he had to come back and how it wasn’t just handed to him. You watch what that team did through the entirety of the season.
Ironically, their second game was at Boston College, and it wasn’t really dynamic. But they came back after that, and what they did from that point on in the season and how they won gives you a great pathway.
Instead of making it up, you can show real-life facts. You have these great teams and players who have lived it and can speak that into the existence of your own team.
How grateful am I? You pinch yourself sometimes when you get an opportunity to represent that kind of tradition and that kind of history.
I appreciate the question. Thank you.
