Can Penn State Win Out? It Would Help Future Payrolls Grow Forward

Four games in 22 days. Penn State’s season has come to that. Nittany Lion football has reached an inflection point. Again.

Terry Smith pulled Penn State out of its six-game morass in 2025. Now, can Matt Campell do the same thing? He is 1-0 on that journey. The Nittany Lions’ 31-17 victory over Purdue was a (very) good start, no matter how you look at it.

Campbell certainly seemed heartened after the game, when he pronounced that he can see Penn State becoming a cohesive unit, with the beginnings of an identity that Campbell himself likes to see — not just on the field, but in the Lasch building and on the practice field.

“It started to become a real team and play for each other and demand a pathway forward, no matter what happens,” Campbell said in a post-game media conference that drew applause at the end from a cadre of recruits and their families watching from a second-floor balcony. “That is what we are set out to build here and build the right foundation on. And we are growing in those moments.”

It is important — as Penn State prepares to play at Washington (5-3, 2-3) then host Minnesota (5-3, 3-2) and Rutgers (2-6, 1-4), before finishing at Maryland (2-6, 0-5)— that Campbell has not lost the locker room.

(About those four games: UDub and the Boat Rowers will be tough outs. While Rutgers, with Greg Schiano’s likely final sojourn to his PSU roots, and Maryland are close to being Mike locks.)

Washington defeats Nebraska 17-10 after scoring 14 points in 15 seconds in final 1:30.

Nebraska is 6-7 since HC Matt Rhule signed a contract extension on Oct. 30, 2025, after he was rumored to be a candidate @ Penn State.

Penn State plays @ Washington @ 3:30 ET next Saturday. pic.twitter.com/34ASez6wBI

— Mike Poorman (@PSUPoorman) November 1, 2026

“This group has never wavered. They’ve never flinched. They never whined or complained,” said Campbell. “They’ve just kind of gone to work and tried like heck to correct the areas and grow themselves forward. I wouldn’t say everybody in that locker room’s done it, but I’d say the bulk majority has. You saw that tonight. It’s exciting for this group because it is really the culture we’re trying to create here.”

Of course, it is also important that Campbell also not lose the fan base. He earned much grace with an offseason where he may not have gone to birthday parties or blown up balloons, but he relentlessly and earnestly went far and wide to connect with Penn State fans, alumni, donors and the Penn State, State College and Commonwealth communities writ large. I was at a fundraising event over the summer that dragged on for hours. Yet, at the end, I peeked across the room and Campbell was still there, focused on the stage and the people and the message. Then, afterwards, he handled a receiving line of admirers with a smile and what seemed to be with grace.

Campbell cashed in a decent portion of that goodwill over the Nittany Lions’ recent four-game losing streak, fraught with a mixture of bad decisions, blown leads, a blowout and QB turnovers. As it is, Penn State is 4-4 and riding a one-game winning streak. Pull back a bit, and PSU is 13-12 since it lost the Big Ten title game to Oregon back in 2024. Two playoff wins followed, and the slide that began with the Notre Dame pick in the CFP Orange Bowl has brought us to this point.

So. Much. Chaos, uncertainty and disappointment. Purdue is an over-the-counter salve for a deep wound.

Penn State has seen worse in the 21st century, for sure. The Dark Years slide in 2000-2004, with a 26-33 record that included a dismal 3-13 Big Ten stretch the latter two years. Then the truly dark scandal. Then the firing of James Franklin that has started a period of Penn State football that has brought us to today:

Dazed, confused, trying to make sense of a good win over a Purdue team that was not very good. To his credit, Franklin walloped the Boilermakers four times by a combined score of 181-72, allowing for the 35-31 tight Thursday night win in West Lafayette.

Probably not the best backdrop from which to raise prices.

WIN OUT, and the Nittany Lions have an 8-4 regular season record, a 5-4 mark in a really crazy, parity-filled Big Ten Conference, with a pretty decent bowl game to cap things off. Most important, it would create momentum in most ways possible. And it will — maybe more importantly — provide a discernible proof of concept:

The Matt Campbell concept of football and growing forward.

A big part of the challenge is the financial situation of the Penn State athletic department. Can it fund a national championship-contending football program — and sooner rather than later?

From Penn State’s most recent report to the NCAA, for fiscal year 2024-25:

Overall Athletics Revenue: $254.87 million
Football Revenue: $146.8 million
Overall Athletics Expenses: $254.64 million
“Excess:” $223,679
Total Athletics-Related Debt: $534.6 million
Athletic-related Facilities Annual Debt Service: $22.9 million

That $223k excess, what will it really get you? A pretty decent O-lineman from the portal, maybe. And it’s what Campbell is paid every eight days on the job.

GROWING FORWARD: Let’s cut to the chase: What really needs to grow forward is Penn State’s payroll (it ain’t name, image and likeness). And the people and the means to make that happen. Penn State needs more talented football players. And it needs the money to pay them.

A growing bank account will matter a lot in the days ahead, on and off the field. Let us count the ways. Beyond Purdue and Marshall, these are the wins that will matter for Campbell and his boss, athletic director Pat Kraft:

+ In the locker room. Who stays, who buys in, who in the locker room will be on the roster at an affordable price in 2027 and 2028? The players’ decision AND Campbell’s.

+ In the college football talent marketplace. Who are GM Derek Hoodjer and his trusty aide Jack Griffth currently targeting to fill what will be many gaps on the Penn State roster at a price that meets their budget? And which agents have they already heard from? A team, on the rise, with a sellable culture, at a price point that grabs a portal player’s attention (and that of his family, agent and numerous uncles), makes for a workable sales pitch. But, the bottom-line is really the bottom-line. What can you pay?

+ Among high school recruits. That the Nittany Lions lost a QB to 4-4 Boston College and a linebacker to 5-3 Wisconsin — both of whom had verballed to Campbell — is not a good look, no matter how you look at it. The recruits may not contribute immediately, but they are necessary for program depth, sustainability and growth — and growth on the field and the win column. Penn State currently ranks No. 21 in the Rivals/On3 recruiting rankings.

+ With sponsors and marketing partners. The sponsors don’t necessarily need national titles to partner up. The Big Boys and Girls who pay the six-figures requisite to be a PSU athletics partner are still going to invest, whether the 2026 Nittany Lions go 8-4 or 6-6.

They are not purchasing wins over Minnesota or Washington. They are buying demographics, access, product affinity, anticipated sales and assets — signage, marketing perks, messaging to PSU fans statewide, the ability to put 6 x 6 posters touting their PSU connection in the windows of the South Atherton Giant where I shop. (And where Carson Hansen shops, too; I saw him and we chatted briefly in the chips aisle at that Giant during the buy…er, bye…week. Nice kid, very polite.) And here;’s the thing: These partners will spend more, if given the right venue, project or opportunity.

+ To ticket and suite buyers. The suites are truly the sweet spot, where Kraft and his money people are counting on the dollars — tens and hundreds of thousands of dollars that will provide the financial capital to help Campbell and his two GMs (Hoodjer and Kraft himself) build a payroll that be in the top five in the Big Ten, if not higher.

+ With Donors. This is the biggie. And, most important of all. Campbell may focus on building a team and culture that is globally welcoming and encouraging for his human beings. All good messaging and living and purpose. But what the donors are buying is wins, and access. And wins.

THE DOLLARS AND SENSE: You cannot win in college football today without strong roster funding. The actual on-site attendance in Beaver Stadium for Purdue was far less than the announced 102,041. And that is not a good optic. But what Campbell needs more than fans in every seat is money.

His payroll is mid-level Big Ten, according to the oft-cited study by The Athletic. It’s in the neighborhood of $29-$32 million, ranking about No. 7 in the 18-team league. Penn State = Mid? The seventh-place finishers in the Big Ten Conference football standings in 2025, with a 5-4 record, were Illinois, Minnesota and Washington. Is that who Penn State, its president, Neeli Bendapudi, Kraft, Campbell and PSU fans think who they are? No, of course not. But you are who your payroll says you are.

What the next four games will provide if they are accompanied by three or four wins is that proof of concept. That Kraft’s decision to jettison James, rebuild from scratch and get closer than the semifinals to the football national championship that Kraft covets — and promised — is within sight. And achievable. 

And that proof of concept is sellable. Giant and Ovo and Amica and adidas and BJ Werzyn of West Shore Home are already in. They bought the concept that is Penn State and Penn State Football. They all didn’t pay out of the goodness of their hearts. It was a transaction, albeit it had to be a bit emotional with Werzyn. Same goes for contributing to rev-share, to paying players.

So, cheaper hot dogs and soda may (briefly) mollify the masses. But it makes little impact one way or another in getting an edge rusher or DT from the SEC who can reach the quarterback and make a difference between a W and an L. (Where art thou, Xavier Gilliam?) Or buying a QB because Alex Manske isn’t ready.

My question? Will the folks with the ways and means to up that payroll have the palate to do so. Or, will they feel like Kirby Smart when he says, “A lot of these guys, honestly, make more than I made until I was 40.”