A 3-0 Start May Be SOP for Penn State, but for Matt Campbell It Means ‘Opportunity is Now Here’

Penn State is off to a 3-0 start against an anonymous and fairly rag-tag trio of non-conference, non-combatant opponents. That’s typical for the Nittany Lions of the past decade or so. They began their seasons 3-0 in eight out of James Franklin’s final nine seasons. (The outlier? COVID 2020.)

To begin his tenure in Happy Valley, Matt Campbell’s Nittany Lions have pounded the opposition, winning by a collective score of 129 to 22. We’ve seen this movie before.

Again, that was par for the course for Franklin’s teams, who in those eight seasons walloped the opposition by a collective 1,018 points to 285. Or, on average, 127 to 35. Sound familiar?

Another outlier: In their opening three games of 2021, the Nittany Lions went undefeated by beating No. 12 Wisconsin 16-10 on the road in the season-opener, then after bouncing Ball State 44-13, they defeated No. 22 Auburn and Bo Nix, 28-20. What followed was not pretty or expected: After beating Villanova and a pre-Cignetti Indiana squad to start 5-0 with a No. 4 ranking, Penn State limped — nine overtimes, anyone? — to a 2-6 finish for an overall record of 7-6.

The point and Warning Label: Early results do not guarantee final results. Campbell knows this as well — if not better— than almost anyone.

This is Campbell’s 15th season as a college football head coach, and he’s had five 3-0 perfect starts. Only one 3-0 in his first decade as a head coach. But, he’s started to figure it out. The 2026 season is the fourth time in the past five years his teams began 3-0. What happened after that?

The results at Iowa State were mixed.

Iowa State, 2022 — 3-0 start, wins over Southeast Missouri, at Iowa and Ohio, by a 95-27 margin. Next: 1-7, with one victory in the next eight games. Final record: 4-8.

Iowa State, 2024 — 3-0, wins over North Dakota, at No. 21 Iowa and Arkansas State, by a 93-29 margin. Next: 7-2, followed by a 45-19 loss to Arizona State in the Big 12 championship game, and a 42-41 win over Miami (Fla.) in the Pop-Tarts Bowl. Final record: 11-3, No. 15 in the AP poll.

Iowa State, 2025 — 3-0, wins over Kansas State in Dublin, South Dakota and Iowa, by a 95-21 margin. Next: win two, lose four, win three as QB Rocco Becht played the second half of the season plagued by injuries. Final record: 8-4.

Penn State, 2026 — 3-0, wins over Marshall, at Temple and Buffalo, by a 127-22 margin. Next: Wisconsin at 5 p.m. Saturday in Beaver Stadium.

Campbell himself knows wins over Marshall and Buffalo are, especially, fool’s gold. He said as much on Saturday after the Nittany Lions outclassed the Bulls, 573 to 173 yards of total offense. Penn State’s air game gained more yards with one Koby Howard TD reception (70 yards) than Buffalo did in 25 pass attempts and 10 completions (60 yards).

“Not where we need to be,” Campbell said. “But I think a team that has certainly grown in different entities each week. Still a team that, in my opinion, has got so much ability and some things that were focal points for us today. And then we grew in some areas that were really a different focal point. This is college football, and I think our ability to grow from week three to week four will be really important.”

OPPORTUNITYISNOWHERE

“Opportunityisnowhere” was a favorite quote of Franklin’s I first encountered when I attended a Nike coaches clinic outside Allentown a month after he was hired in January 2014. I sometimes use it when teaching. (James might be surprised to hear that.) You can read it two ways:

1. “Opportunity is nowhere.” When Franklin shared this in that pep talk to high school coaches a dozen years ago, he flashed the run-on word on the screen and said, “A lot of people read it as ‘Opportunity is nowhere.’ I’m gonna tell you, there are guys at Penn State who read it like this.”

2. “Opportunity is now here.” From what I’ve seen and heard and experienced of Campbell since he was hired by Pat Kraft 289 days ago, Campbell definitely reads it this way.

“Wait a second,” in the words of Michigan. Who doesn’t? Just a few weeks into the 2026 season, it’s difficult to not to see Penn State’s upcoming Big Ten Conference schedule unfolding with acres of opportunities that a guy who spent the past decade in Iowa can’t wait to harvest.

And you thought Penn State’s Big Ten slate looked easy back in August? The toughest two foes before the season started, USC and Michigan, look as vulnerable as 3-0 teams can be. Western Michigan, a (very) controversial 13-12 loser to the Wolverines, and a mediocre Oklahoma, 17-10 loser to the Wolverines, can attest to that. So can Rutgers, which lost just barely to USC, 42-35, is 0-3, and with defeats at the hands of UMass and BC. Man, Lincoln Riley must miss D’Anton Lynn.

Northwestern (a Friday night grand opening of its $900 million stadium) and Washington (Husky Stadium is 2,634 miles from Beaver Stadium) are a pair of road games at challenging venues being played at times and/or days that are sure to wreak havoc on Penn State’s logistics and body clocks.

That leaves the aforementioned Wisconsin and Rutgers, plus Minnesota and Maryland, as the remaining conference teams on PSU’s schedule.

You tell me. It’s getting hard to not imagine Penn State going 7-2 the rest of the way, with a ceiling of 7-1 and a floor of 6-3. Two losses could put Penn State in the College Football Playoffs. ESPN’s Football Power Index (FPI) now gives the Nittany Lions a 38.5% chance to make the CFP — a big jump from the 28.9% of just a week ago.

For Campbell & Co., opportunity is now here.