Penn State football to hire Iowa State coach Matt Campbell: Reports
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Penn State football appears to have landed one of the most highly-respected head coaches in the nation, after all.
This drawn-out, even fretful, 54-day-long coaching search is ending with Iowa State‘s Matt Campbell, according to national reports, including ESPN. He’s the second impressive but somewhat under-the-radar candidate Penn State officials targeted this week.
On Tuesday, Penn State suffered a public swing-and-miss when BYU head coach Kalani Sitake decided to stay at his alma mater in the final hours.
On Friday, Campbell was being touted as the Nittany Lions‘ long-awaited hire. He’s just their fifth head coach since 1950 and a soft-landing for athletic director Pat Kraft and university officials, who reportedly spent weeks interviewing, and chasing, bigger-name candidates, with nothing to show.
Campbell will agree to an eight-year contract pending Penn State Board of Trustees approval, according to ESPN’s Pete Thamel.
Campbell, 46, is known as a no-nonsense winner able to overcome inferior talent, facility infrastructure and tradition. His Iowa State biography describes him as “a proven leader, culture changer and architect of the most successful stretch in the program’s 134-year history.”
He is 8-4 this season with an impressive 72-55 record since taking over the forlorn Cyclones in 2016. The three-time Big 12 Coach of the Year (2017, 2018, 2020) enjoyed arguably his most successful season last year at 11-3 — the first double-digit win season in school history.
Of course, Campbell will have his work cut out for him immediately in State College. He’ll be tasked with trying to save a lost recruiting class, keep a vulnerable roster together and then charge Penn State to the requisite immediate success his supporters and bosses envision.
“Our next coach needs to be able to maximize elite-level resources, attack the transfer portal and develop at the highest level,” Kraft said in his press conference the day after firing James Franklin. “This person has to fit Penn State. They need to represent the toughness, the blue-collar work ethic and the class that defines this institution.
“We want someone who honors our tradition but isn’t afraid to evolve, someone who understands the weight of ‘We Are” and leads us forward with a vision of championships.”
Matt Campbell: From Iowa State to Penn State football
Campbell’s hiring officially begins to close one of the most turbulent stretches in recent school history.
The Nittany Lions appeared emboldened to make a national championship run in 2025 after falling just short in last season’s CFP. They returned a core of their star players, including quarterback Drew Allar, and boasted one of the nation’s top coaching staffs after hiring away defensive coordinator Jim Knowles from national title-winning Ohio State.
Of course, all of that couldn’t prevent Penn State’s stunning collapse from a preseason No. 2 ranking into arguably the nation’s most disappointing team. Franklin was fired on Oct. 12, halfway through an epic six-game losing streak, which set PSU on its first head coaching search in a dozen years.
Since, the Lions have been led by interim head coach Terry Smith, the former PSU wide receiver and longtime assistant. He quickly regrouped his sagging team, spurring it to three straight wins to close out the regular season and a near-upset of No. 2 Indiana.
The ongoing search was among college football’s longest this season. The biggest news was being linked, at least tangentially, to candidates who ended up signing new deals with their current teams (Indiana’s Curt Cignetti, Texas A&M’s Mike Elko, Missouri’s Eli Drinkwitz and Nebraska’s Matt Rhule) and potential rising stars in the profession (James Madison’s Bob Chesney, Ohio State offensive coordinator Brian Hartline) who went elsewhere.
In the meantime, Franklin found a new job leading Virginia Tech — and, as expected, helped blow up Penn State’s 2026 recruiting class, getting 11 members to flip to his Hokies by the early national signing day, Dec. 3.
It’s also unclear how the immediate transition of running the Lions will transpire with the team beginning preparations for an expected bowl game between Christmas and New Year’s Day.
Will Smith or any of the Nittany Lion assistants be asked and accept to work under Campbell?
Of course, Campbell will quickly be judged against the more dynamic Franklin, who earned a 100-45 record in 12 seasons at Penn State, and was known for program-building, recruiting and consistently beating the opponents he was favored to beat.
However, he was criticized most harshly for his Penn State teams rarely ever winning marquee match-ups. They were just 15-29 against ranked opponents — and a desultory 4-21 against Top 10 teams.
Franklin is tied with Rip Engle for the second-most head coaching victories at Penn State, behind Joe Paterno’s major college football record of 409.
Frank Bodani covers Penn State football for the York Daily Record and USA Today Network. Contact him at fbodani@ydr.com and follow him on X, formerly known as Twitter, @YDRPennState.
This article originally appeared on York Daily Record: Penn State football to hire Iowa State head coach Matt Campbell
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