Liam MacKenzie
In the words of Etta James “At last, the skies above are blue” as the Penn State Nittany Lions football team have finally found their next head coach presumably for the future in Matt Campbell. This ends a 54 day coaching search for Penn State as the successor to James Franklin has been found. Some might say that this feels like a “better late than never” type of hire as Campbell comes into the role after only 2 high school commits signed on National Signing Day. With Franklin leaving to become the head coach at Virginia Tech, it resulted in players flipping their commitments to play for the Hokies as they were guys that wanted to play for Coach Franklin.
Matt Campbell comes into Happy Valley with a career coaching record of 107-70 as he has had notable success with teams like Toledo where he posted a 35-15 record with the Rockets and at Iowa State where he had a 72-55 record with the Cyclones which shows that Penn State has a guy that can be pretty consistent. At Toledo, Campbell was able to lead the football program to back to back conference title game appearances in the Mid-American Conference (MAC) in 2014 and in 2015 while at Iowa State, he was able to lead the program to the Big 12 Championship Game twice both in 2020 against Oklahoma and in 2024 against Arizona State. He has made seven bowl appearances in his coaching tenure while also being able to bring Iowa State into multiple top 25 & top 10 AP poll appearances which is where Penn State hopes to return to.
For Campbell, he has an even tougher task ahead of him as he jumps from a Big 12 level team in Iowa State to a Big Ten level team that is Penn State which saw their football program have a year under James Franklin who has struggled due to injuries and his coaching performance turn out to be not as good as other years. What Campbell will bring to the table is that he is proven to build up programs as it was pretty significant during his time at Iowa State which used to be a struggling program until they were consistently winning as they became relevant which was the case last season when they made the Big 12 title game. Another factor that he will bring is player development where he becomes excellent at finding, developing and getting NFL quality talent from areas that aren’t really focused on in terms of recruiting which was the case for a guy in Brock Purdy. Campbell also has been a part of teams that have displayed discipline who have shown consistent/reliable performances year in and year out. Campbell also happens to show elite coaching since he is someone that is a highly respected coach who can consistently maximize talent and can exceed expectations. The culture that he brings is one that consists of “love, care, and to serve our players”.
Happy Valley has been waiting for a new football coach and they got one as it will be Matt Campbell taking the reins. He is a guy that has had consistent success, but now he will be coaching at an even higher level which happens to be the Big Ten. Feels like Penn State got themselves an early Christmas present, but only time will tell as to how this hire will turn out to be.
