Yours, Mine and Ours: ‘We’re All Penn Staters Now’

As Matt Campbell pieced together the 2026 Penn State football staff and roster, it was a classic case of yours, mine and ours. The Nittany Lions were the Brady Bunch of college football, sans Alice.

They welcomed 62 newcomers to Happy Valley — 40 transfers and 22 freshmen. Only UCLA, which cleaned house (speaking of Alice) after the season, has more transfers among the 18 Big Ten schools, at 42. Not so ironically, one UCLA assistant coach and two Bruin players landed in University Park.

Twenty-four of the transfers came from Iowa State with Campbell & Co. It’s been a little Abbott, a lot of Costello — tough to tell who’s on first (team) even with a scorecard.

The Nittany Lions’ opening day roster in Beaver Stadium against Marshall featured 50 holdovers from the 2025 Penn State squad. Overall, general manager Derek Hoodjer quickly assembled a roster of players who were on 16 different college teams last season, and came from hometowns in 28 different states, plus one place down under and another upside down: Australia and Washington, D.C.

But, that was then and this is now.

Penn State defensive tackle Siale Taupaki, from East Oakland, Calif., is in his eighth season — not a typo — of college football. Taupaki played in 40 games across seven seasons at UCLA (2019-25) — 33 on the D-line and seven on the offensive line. In 2025, he was a force for the Bruins when they upset Penn State 42-37 at the Rose Bowl.

On Tuesday, Taupaki made it clear that when the coaching-change smoke clears in Los Angeles you do not UCLA. You see Mount Nittany.

“That was that. Now we’re here,” Taupaki said. “That’s the past. I’m at Penn State for life.”

CAMPBELL, COACHES AND COMMUNICATION

The core 13-man Nittany Lions coaching staff, including Campbell, were at eight different schools in 2025: Holdovers Terry Smith and Justin Lustig from Penn State; Campbell and four others from Iowa State; then coaches from USC, UCLA and Northwestern in the Big Ten, and a trio from Boston College, Cincinnati and UConn.

Though Campbell has had months and months to create a cohesive unit, and has artfully used former Penn State football stars, Sue Paterno, countless group shares and team- and community-building projects to make the Nittany Lions one, he wasn’t sure what the result would be when his team hit the field on Saturday in Beaver Stadium.

“Obviously, new coaching staff on offense and defense,” Campbell said on Tuesday. “First time in that environment. I was really nervous about our ability to be great communicators, both the ability to make in-game adjustments as a coaching staff — with new players, then the ability for our players to communicate on the field. I thought we did some really good things that way, which was great. We needed that.”

Campbell’s Nittany Cyclones were, overall, smooth operators. Four penalties, zero turnovers, little mayhem. Penn State, not Allstate.

LYNN’S DEFENSE IS ALL IN

For his part, Penn State defensive coordinator D’Anton Lynn entered the game with a unique perspective that only Smith, the associate head coach and a former PSU captain, could relate to. Lynn started 37 of his last 38 games as a cornerback at Penn State, so he knows the lay of the land. (“Lots of horses and cows,” Taupaki quipped on Tuesday.) But, Lynn is also at his third school coordinating its defense over the past four seasons — he was DC at UCLA in 2023, then DC at USC in 2024-25, and now he’s back at Penn State in 2026.

And on Tuesday, when I asked Lynn if the Nittany Lions now seem have to assimilated into #oneteam, he was emphatic in his answer, making adroit use of his Penn State Class of 2012 communications arts & sciences degree:

“I feel like we have a high level of trust on our defensive staff and that trickles down to the players,” Lynn said. “It’s to the point now, we’re all Penn Staters now. You can’t tell who’s been here, you can’t tell who is from Iowa State, who came from a different school. We’re all Penn Staters now.”

Lynn is now an expert at defensive DIY’s. Saturday is proof of concept. Marshall was blanked 45-0, didn’t have a play over 14 yards and crossed midfield only three times in 12 tries. 

Lynn’s six-man defensive staff coached at six different schools last season. Lynn did know Smith a bit, since they share Penn State roots. And Lynn and PSU defensive line coach/run game coordinator Ikaika Malloe were at UCLA together in 2023. In fact, when Lynn went across town to coach at USC in 2024, Malloe succeeded him as the Bruins’ defensive coordinator.

“For me, it starts with the staff,” Lynn said on Tuesday. “If you want a certain culture on your side of the football or the team, it starts with the staff. This is my third time with a new defensive staff and building a defense from scratch. The more you can make it our defense” — Lynn clasped his hands together, interlocking his 10 fingers — “the more everyone feels like they are a part of it.”

The 2025 Penn State team scattered, to Blacksburg, Va., with James Franklin; to Temple, a few hours to the east; to Tennessee with former PSU DC Jim Knowles; and seemingly #107k other places. Campbell left Ames with two dozen players, but many of the Cyclones he recruited stayed put.

Under new Iowa State head coach Jimmy Rogers, the Cyclones beat Southeast Missouri 38-10 in their season-opener. But things get very real very quickly, when Iowa State travels to Iowa City on Saturday night to play archrival No. 21 Iowa in Kinnick Stadium. Campbell won’t be watching. He said on Tuesday that he’s not looking in his rearview mirror.

“Obviously, not much. The one thing that you always do, you’re tracking all your former players,” Campbell said. “I think that’s one thing, the culture of the relationship that you had with so many great players. I think the only thing you saw is so many of our guys have a great day there last Saturday. I think you’re more tracking the individual performance of your players. Across some other schools, too. Guys had great games, great start to things. For me, it’s really about the people and about the players. Really, you track those humans. You want the absolute best for them.”

NO PRAYERS FOR TEMPLE

On Saturday, in The Linc — where Campbell has coached before, for Bowling Green and Toledo — his mind will be on the Owls.

Temple has four former Nittany Lions on their roster, including nose tackle Kaleb Artis, who made his debut last week in the Owls’ 38-14 win over Rhode Island. In that game the 6-foot-4, 315-pound nose tackle earned the highest grade (77.7) on the Owls defensive line from Pro Football Focus.

Former PSU QB Jaxon Smolik is part of the Owls’ two-quarterback rotation. The good: He was 4 of 6 for 57 yards, with a TD pass, The bad: He was sacked twice and fumbled twice, losing one. Former Nittany Lions safety Kolin Dinkins had three tackles (one solo) and tight end Joey Schlaffer (zero catches) also plays for Temple.

They all had Cooper Cousins as a teammate at Penn State. Now the Nittany Lions’ starting right guard, the 6-6, 320-pound Cousins may run into Artis more than once during the game. The reunion will hit — literally — like a third-of-a-ton of bricks. Cousins told me on Tuesday that past relationships with any and all former teammates, whether he’ll be blocking one of them on Saturday or not, are not on his mind these days.

“You’ll see them every now and then,” Cousins said. “I think both sides are just worrying about their team, the team that they’re on right now. Obviously, I have good relationships with all former players that have been here in the program, outside of the program. But I think we’re all just kind of worried about our teams that we’re on right now. And the focus is just on the games that we’re playing.”