In 2015, the Iowa State Cyclones football team finished with a record of 3-9 and ended their season with losses to Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, Kansas State, and West Virginia. The program was in shambles. Iowa State had won just five games in two years. Every position group was hurting, the school couldn’t recruit high-rated prospects, and the future looked bleak.
So ISU hired a young Matt Campbell as its new head coach, and things began to change.
Their record in 2016 was still just 3-9, but the team was improving and won two of its final three games, over Kansas and Texas Tech.
Then in 2017, Campbell’s systems began to click in. The Cyclones finished 8-5 with a Liberty Bowl victory over No. 20 Memphis and wins along the way against No. 3 Oklahoma, No. 4 TCU, and Baylor.
Campbell, who was named the new head coach at Penn State last month, went on to coach eight winning seasons at Iowa State, play in seven bowl games, and win 72 games overall. He was ISU’s winningest coach ever.
Quite a turnaround. How Campbell did it and the systematic changes he implemented very well may indicate some of the things that are in store for the Nittany Lions.
What He Did at ISU
The first thing the new coach did at Iowa State was try to establish a culture of hard work, standards, high expectations, and accountability — for players, coaches, and staff. He wanted to establish respect among the players in the locker room and remove entitlement and selfishness.
Next, he emphasized player development. Because Iowa State could not recruit top-level players, they identified lightly recruited or overlooked players who could be developed into high-level talent. This helped mitigate their shortcomings in recruiting. Top NFL stars Brock Purdy and David Montgomery are examples of this approach.
But the rebuilding and development was done the “hard way,” without shortcuts. The focus on fundamentals demanded maximum effort and consistency until it was routine. The development, hard work, consistency, and no-shortcut approach began to be ingrained into the team’s identity.
As the Cyclones began to improve on the field, there were touchstone wins, such as over No. 3 Oklahoma and No. 4 TCU in 2017, that began to convince the players and fans that this was all working. And the Cyclones began to believe in the process and build on those successes.
Now, Campbell is taking over the head coaching position at Penn State, a program that traditionally emphasized many of the elements of his process at ISU.
Penn State has always talked about excellence, character, and community when describing its athletic programs. The Nittany Lion football team’s cornerstones have always been toughness and discipline, and the team always prided itself in its ability to develop players to their highest potential. The football team has had high levels of academic achievement with its players, and they have always had strong community ties.
Campbell believes that teams have to respond to adversity in order to build championship habits, and that aligns with where the Nittany Lions find themselves now after a difficult season and a myriad of challenges. The team’s “We Are” identity will be severely tested in the coming months.
What’s up Next
All of this, including the vastly widened resources available at Penn State, have many people saying that Campbell is a home-run hire as the new PSU coach. If he could accomplish all that at ISU, what will he be able to do at a school with as much to offer as Penn State? Can he develop the school’s high-level talent even farther?
Campbell, in a very short period of time, has already begun operating as the new coach. His first decision was to do everything he could to retain interim head coach Terry Smith, and that was successful. Smith is highly popular in the locker room, and he will greatly help with the retention of players after the firing of James Franklin and with decisions regarding the transfer portal.
There are also things on the immediate horizon that will no doubt reveal even more about Campbell’s plans for this team.
He will be evaluating the present roster and, with the transfer portal opening in early January, making decisions about what the 2026 Lions will look like. Will there be players transferring in from ISU?
He will be creating his coaching staff, with questions looming about who will stay from the current staff, who might come over from Ames, and who might be hired from elsewhere.
All of this was happening as the team prepared for its appearance in the Dec. 27 Pinstripe Bowl against Clemson. Campbell said he did not want to be a “disruption” in these preparations, but he was no doubt watching very closely.
He will also be closely watched.
The days of “doing more with less,” like at Iowa State, are in the past for Campbell. Maybe it’s now “do more with more.” Or even “do a lot more with a lot more.” Although, of course, there are still many obstacles and difficulties to overcome.
The world of college football is vastly different than it was in 2016, with the transfer portal, NILs, giant conferences, and the playoffs. Recruits are hopping everywhere, and, believe it or not, the high school players who just signed a letter of intent can actually enter the portal and enroll at another school.
So it will all be different, except maybe for hard work, development, discipline, and consistency.
In his opening press conference, Campbell flashed some of the passion and emotion he will surely bring to this team, and those things will no doubt carry over to the field in 2026.
He seems to want everyone involved with his program to take “We are Penn State” very seriously. T&G
Pat Rothdeutsch is a longtime sports reporter for Town&Gown’s sister publication, The Centre County Gazette.
