University Park– One of the bigger storylines for Penn State football out of fall camp was a veteran defender changing positions.
When reporters were allowed to observe practice during the first week of camp, they saw that Caleb Bacon was practicing at defensive end, not linebacker.
Soon, coach Matt Campbell confirmed what we saw, and a little less than a month later, Bacon made his Penn State debut and his college football debut at defensive end. Against Marshall, he looked like he had been playing the position his entire life. In just the first half alone, Bacon had five tackles, three tackles for loss and a sack, establishing himself as Penn State’s top defensive performer.
For Campbell, moving Bacon— who played linebacker for four seasons at Iowa State, where Campbell coached before taking the Penn State job— not moving Bacon to the edge would have been a missed opportunity.
“As we kind of got through spring, we kind of felt like, man, we’d be missing the boat not to add his multiplicity. He’s a great edge player. He certainly has the ability to slide back and play Mike or Will linebacker at times as well because he’s great in coverage. He’s a smart football player,” Campbell told reporters.
Add Nittany Sports Now as a preferred source in Google! Click here to add us.Bacon said at Penn State’s local media day that this change had been discussed for a while.
“I think Coach Campbell, even at Iowa State, brought that up to me. He really liked me as a pass rusher there, both in ’23 and ’25 when I played,” he said. “I feel like that was even with very minimal coaching in the pass-rush game. I didn’t really work with the D-line there much. A lot of it was just effort, attitude and rushing.“
“I worked with them a little bit, but not too much. Being in the D-line room here has opened things up a little bit more, learning different techniques from guys like Coach C (Christian Smith) and Coach (Ikaika) Malloe. I feel like that’s really helped me so far in fall camp.”
