Matt Campbell talks settling into Penn State, injuries and more as spring ball starts
The last four months of Matt Campbell’s life have involved plenty of upheaval. He left a program he’d been at for over a decade in Iowa State for one that had just uprooted its own football building by firing James Franklin after his own decade-plus in charge.
He’s gone from Ames, Iowa to State College, Pennsylvania and brought his family — and a lot of his coaching staff and their families — with him. That part has been difficult.
But when he’s been in Lasch football building, after spending the first two weeks trying to navigate his way around it, he’s been able to lean on what he knows.
“You kind of hit the ground running, and the process it takes to build a football team, year in and year out, and build a football program, I don’t think those things change,” Campbell said Tuesday morning at his first press conference of the spring.
Tuesday also marked the beginning of the first spring ball of Campbell’s tenure at Penn State, and with it came some added normalcy for him, his staff and his players. Because this is why he was brought here. There was plenty of noise about the coaching search, hiring a staff and building a roster, but that was all in service of winning games. And now, Campbell can begin building to that goal as Penn State’s head coach.
Which makes this spring, the first one with this specific team, both familiar and unfamiliar.
“I still believe coaching is teaching, and teaching is the ability to inspire learning,” Campbell said. “Every time you go out to practice or every time you go to a meeting, these are teaching opportunities. ... I do think every year is still different in football, especially with the turnover in rosters from year to year and certainly sometimes coaching staff. ... I don’t think it’s so foreign to me in terms of starting back over, but I do think aligning everybody and making sure we’re ‘slow and right’, right now — where do drills go, where does the offense go, where does the defense go, all those kinds of things are certainly unique and new. And so ‘slow and right’ is really the process for us.”
Dealing with injuries
Getting this team to coalesce will be of the utmost priority this spring with all the new faces from Iowa State and elsewhere supplementing a base of Penn State players who decided to return to the program. That will be made a little bit harder by the number of injuries that players are coming off from last season.
There are plenty of players who won’t be full participants, like quarterback Rocco Becht and wide receivers Brett Eskildsen and Chase Sowell, and others who won’t participate, like offensive tackle Anthony Donkoh. But that doesn’t mean the program won’t be able to get work done. Instead of those projected starters getting reps, this will be an opportunity for young players to stand out.
That’s especially true at wide receiver, a position Penn State has struggled to develop in recent years.
“We’re really excited about where that room is,” Campbell said. “... Karon Brookins is a super talent. We thought he was one of the really talented young guys that was in our program at Iowa State a year ago. ... We’re excited about what he’s got the ability to do. Zay Robinson, a really talented young guy. And obviously Koby Howard. Koby got an opportunity to get in late in the season and did some really good things, and we think really highly of him.
“And so I just think that whole room in general has got great ability, but they’re young, and they’re going to have to grow up fast.”
And with Becht out, this will be an opportunity for redshirt freshman quarterback Alex Manske to get live reps in with those players in what could be a glimpse of the future for Penn State fans.
Quick hitters
- Campbell re-iterated that the team’s 15th practice will be in Beaver Stadium, but with details on Blue-White weekend still to be finalized. He emphasized the importance of getting the players in front of fans, and getting the fans a chance to see the players, adding that the program “won’t waste a day” when it comes to practicing.
- Despite a litany of injuries, Campbell said he expects, as of now, everyone to be full-go by the time fall camp rolls around.
- Becht is ahead of schedule, according to Campbell, after doing some individual work Tuesday in the team’s first practice.
