Leaving for Penn State was ‘paralyzingly hard’ for Matt Campbell. How he knew it was right
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Campbell described leaving Iowa State as paralyzingly hard but ultimately right.
- Family ties and Penn State leadership tipped Campbell’s decision toward the job.
- Campbell aims to build a long-term program and pursue Penn State’s first title.
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Matt Campbell seemed at ease as he sat in a room in Penn State’s Beaver Stadium locker room. In what will likely go down as one of the busiest days of his tenure as Penn State’s football coach, he had a small reprieve. There were no cameras and no photographers — just him and a small group of local reporters who he fielded questions from.
He smiled and joked as he spoke, but the sincerity in his voice and his actions — making direct eye contact and speaking without hesitation — made it clear getting to this place was not easy for him.
“I don’t even know if I can put on a scale of how hard it was,” Campbell said about leaving his job at Iowa State. “It was really hard. At times paralyzingly hard to actually make the decision to leave. You’ll find this out — there’s nothing more important than my word, and there’s nothing more important than relationships. And I felt like there was a part of me that was maybe not following through with my word to the young men that came to play for us and stayed to play for us.
“Friday night when I told them, I didn’t leave till two in the morning, and every young man came into my office and thanked me. And that’s when I knew it was the right decision.”
Campbell had other opportunities to leave. He said so himself — twice he had said he would take another job, and both times he couldn’t bring himself to leave Iowa State.
But there was something different this time around. He commended Penn State president Neeli Bendapudi and AD Pat Kraft, but there’s more to his decision than that.
“The regionality of bringing my family back home ... to have my father and my mother and Erica’s family be able to come and be a part of this experience with us again, I can’t lie and tell you that that didn’t have a big impact,” Campbell said, “because I think it certainly did as well. And so I think putting all those things together really pushed it over the edge for me to say it’s time.”
He’d never been to State College before Sunday, when he arrived at the airport and later got a look at the Lasch Building. And on Monday he was introduced as the 17th head football coach in Penn State history — making the decision that this will be the place he stakes his legacy on.
Because at the end of the day, that’s what this is.
Campbell spent a decade at Iowa State turning the worst Power Four program in the country into a consistent winner. He has half of the Cyclones 8+ win seasons in the last 100 seasons and did it with far less resources than those around him. And that was only exacerbated in an era where players can be compensated. He said Iowa State had the lowest-paid roster among all Power Four schools last season. He’s taken a team with nothing and turned it into something.
But now the stakes are higher. He did not shy away from the expectations at Penn State — Kraft has said time and time again that he wants to win national championship — and his tenure with the Nittany Lions will be judged by if he can meet them. That’s why what it takes to reach those goals is so important to him.
“We know what the expectation is here at Penn State, it’s been laid for a long time,” Campbell said. “But you can’t have those expectations without the habits and the daily process that it takes to get there. And that’s what you’re going to hear me talk about. I know what the expectations are, and I want those expectations, and I have the same goals, and our kids are going to have the same goals.”
And this could reasonably be the last place Campbell tries to do that. The 46-year-old stayed at Iowa State longer than anyone could have expected. He’s not the type of coach to constantly hop around from job to job. And if the Cyclones were able to keep him for a decade, there’s no reason Penn State can’t hang onto him for even longer.
It helps that this place is close to home for him. Campbell grew up in Ohio, but his grandparents and great-grandparents lived in Carmichaels, Pennsylvania — and growing up, he heard about what Penn State was from them. About Joe Paterno and the toughness and character of Penn State football.
And there’s the most important part when it comes to sticking around — Campbell alluded to being in it for the long haul.
“If we were to leave Iowa State I wanted to go somewhere and I wanted to finish my career and I wanted to stand for something that’s bigger than Matt Campbell,” he said at his introductory presser. “It’s not about me, but about the players and represents something bigger than myself, and I found that. I couldn’t be more humbled and grateful for that opportunity.”
Campbell will now have a chance to get what has eluded Penn State, and what he never had a chance at with the Cyclones. Because this job made it so there was no need to wait any longer to make a move. He’d found a place for him and his family to call home for the foreseeable future — one that made leaving Iowa State worth it for him.
And although Monday was not the culmination of what he’d built in his time as a coach — getting the Penn State job is not the mountaintop for Campbell or any other coach with his ability — it can get him and the Nittany Lions in position to earn what no coach has led Penn State to in nearly 40 years.
A national championship.
