When Penn State athletic director Pat Kraft completed his opening remarks at the introduction of new football coach Matt Campbell on Monday afternoon, turning to shake hands and hug the man he’d successfully plucked from Iowa State, it was easy to imagine a sense of relief coursing through the leader of the Nittany Lions’ prolonged search.
Nearly two months had passed since Kraft made the stunning decision to fire longtime coach James Franklin on Oct. 12, the day after Penn State suffered a 22-21 home loss to Northwestern that saddled the program with a third consecutive defeat — unfathomable for a team that began the season ranked No. 2 in the AP Top 25 and had fallen a play or two short of reaching the national championship last year. A campaign that many expected to be the best in Franklin’s tenure, especially after the Nittany Lions retained so many of their core contributors from the 2024 squad, was rotting away before the weather had even turned cold.
Since then, reports surrounding Kraft’s high-profile coaching search linked Penn State with seemingly every attractive candidate in college football: Curt Cignetti at Indiana, Eli Drinkwitz at Missouri, Kalen DeBoer at Alabama, Matt Rhule at Nebraska and Kalani Sitake at BYU, among others. All of them either signed extensions with their current employer or publicly removed themselves from consideration at Penn State. The notion that Kraft had botched the hiring process for one of the best jobs in the country began swirling around social media, especially once an audio recording of his private comments to Penn State’s players was leaked late last week, a development that Kraft said left him “embarrassed.”
Despite all that turmoil and turbulence, there stood Kraft, introducing a new hire that most agreed was a shrewd pickup for the Nittany Lions. After all, Campbell had become something of an annual fixture in coaching carousel discussions given his tremendous revitalization of Iowa State, which posted five eight-win seasons under his guidance and produced 15 NFL draft picks since 2019 alone. He had been pursued for some of the sport’s biggest openings in recent years and even had a dalliance or two with the NFL. But until this past weekend, when Penn State inked him to an eight-year deal with $70.5 million guaranteed, Campbell always chose to remain with the Cyclones.
“Penn State football today emerges tougher, clearer and more driven than ever before,” Kraft said. “And we turn a page to a new era. We are introducing a leader who embodies everything Penn State stands for: a builder, a fighter, a standard-bearer of what this place can be at its very best. A coach whose teams compete with a chip on their shoulder and conviction in their hearts. A coach who’s committed to shaping complete men — mind, body, character and purpose — because he believes greatness is forged way beyond just the practice fields.”
Here’s some analysis of what was said:
Campbell on his decision to retain interim head coach Terry Smith: “It was critically important for me to keep Terry. … Terry and I have got a great partnership from his days [coaching] at Gateway [High School]. I know what he’s about and what he stands for. Building a staff is so critical because you need to build it around the same character values as who you are and what you want your team to stand for.
“As soon as we got into discussions [about] this job, it was one of the first questions that I asked: ‘Boy, I would really like to keep Terry; what do you think?’ It was a resounding yes. The fact that Terry wants to stay and be a part of this, I couldn’t be more grateful — I really mean it — to work hand in hand with him. And knowing what it means to play here, knowing what it means to coach here and knowing what it means to lead here, that’s huge for me.”
Analysis: Given how valuable Smith has proven himself to be across more than a decade on Franklin’s staff — not to mention the strong leadership he showed in guiding Penn State to a bowl game as the interim coach — it’s easy to believe that Campbell’s desire to keep him was genuine and not something demanded by Kraft or other members of the school’s administration.
Smith, 56, was born and raised in Pennsylvania. His father attended Penn State. Smith himself played for the Nittany Lions from 1987-91 under legendary head coach Joe Paterno, a man to whom he remains deeply loyal, evidenced by the supportive “409” lapel pin he wore this season. The entirety of Smith’s coaching career has unfolded within the Keystone State: from several stints at the high school level, to collegiate stops at Duquesne and Temple before ultimately returning to his alma mater after Franklin was hired in 2014. He’s the living embodiment of everything the program pitches to prospective student-athletes.
From a football standpoint, Smith also filled a valuable role as Franklin’s cornerbacks coach for the past 12 years. He worked closely with co-defensive coordinator and safeties coach Anthony Poindexter in the development of a talent-ridden secondary that has produced eight NFL draft picks since 2022, including four players who were selected in the first three rounds during that span. As a recruiter — an area where Smith excelled given his generational ties to the program — he took the lead on eventual Penn State standouts like running back Miles Sanders, safeties Jaquan Brisker, Ji’Ayir Brown, Jaylen Reed and Zakee Wheatley and cornerbacks Joey Porter Jr. and Kalen King, among others. Keeping someone with Smith’s reputation and experience should help ease any lingering tension between the new regime and any in-state high schools loyal to Franklin.
But Smith, who will remain as interim coach through the postseason, should play an even more important role in Campbell’s short-term efforts to solidify Penn State’s roster for 2026 and beyond. Beginning with the homemade “Hire Terry Smith” signs players paraded around Beaver Stadium following a victory over Nebraska in late November, there was a groundswell movement within the locker room that lobbied for Smith to be awarded the full-time job. Widespread speculation about which players Penn State might lose to the transfer portal if Kraft hired someone else quickly set the fan base ablaze.
Keeping Smith in some capacity, even though he’s not the outright head coach, still gives Campbell a better chance of retaining the roster’s core.
“If you want to win, if you want to have real success, trust has got to resonate from top to bottom in the program,” Campbell said. “It starts with the coach-player relationship. … For the next four to five days, I want to meet individually with every player on our team [and ask them] why did you come to Penn State? What’s going on here? Who are you and where are you going and what’s your thought process and how do we move ourselves forward?”
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Campbell on his roster-building philosophy: “One of the great reasons [for] being here is, boy, you’re in the most fertile ground of the excellence of high school football in a six- to eight-hour radius. Everything will start with building [through] high school football and continuing to do a great job in this state and our surrounding states. Nobody is going to attack more than us.
“Transfer portal, obviously, has become a unique advantage probably in some ways and sometimes can be a disadvantage. … We have a process. We know what we’re looking for in the transfer portal and have to use that to continue to supplement our football team. Nobody will be better at developing our student-athletes and our high school football players better than us. We’ve proven that every step of the way.”
Analysis: When Kraft addressed the media in mid-October, shortly after his decision to fire Franklin, some of his comments hinted at a desire for Penn State’s next head coach — whoever that would end up being — to demonstrate more aggressiveness and efficacy in the transfer portal, considering the vast resources at the program’s disposal.
Franklin had been a more sporadic adopter of the transfer portal during his final few years in charge, opting instead for a heavier dose of high school recruiting. His portal classes tended to be on the smaller side, averaging just six players per cycle from 2022-25, and most of the additions Franklin made were depth pieces rather than top-end stars. The rare exceptions to that rule included former Maryland edge rusher Chop Robinson in 2022, former Georgia cornerback A.J. Harris in 2024 and former Syracuse wide receiver Trebor Pena this spring. None of his portal hauls ranked better than 10th in the Big Ten during that span, according to 247Sports.
“Our next head coach,” Kraft said two months ago, “needs to be able to maximize elite-level resources, attack the transfer portal and develop at the highest level.”
The raw data suggests that Campbell’s approach to the transfer portal is fairly similar to the strategy Franklin employed, though it’s important to note that he’ll have far better financial backing at Penn State than he did with the Cyclones. His average portal class across the past four years at Iowa State only included 5.5 incoming transfers per year, including two cycles when he added four players or fewer. Those groups ranked even worse in the Big 12 than Franklin’s classes did in the Big Ten hierarchy: last in 2022, last in 2023, last in 2024 and second-to-last in 2025.
But what Campbell stressed during the introductory news conference at Penn State was the idea that he and his staff — which will include former Iowa State director for player personnel Derek Hoodjer as the Nittany Lions’ new general manager — have a heightened ability to identify transfers who can develop into legitimate stars. He pointed to former Eastern Kentucky wide receiver Jayden Higgins, who finished with more than 2,000 receiving yards in two seasons with the Cyclones in 2023 and 2024 before becoming a second-round pick by the Houston Texans. He mentioned former Princeton offensive tackle Jalen Travis, who spent one season at Iowa State last fall and then was chosen in the fourth round by the Indianapolis Colts earlier this year.
There’s a strong chance that this offseason will be the most active of Campbell’s career in the transfer portal, both in terms of current Nittany Lions who may choose to depart and the volume of newcomers needed to flesh out the roster. Some players could wind up following Franklin to Virginia Tech — he has already flipped 10 high school recruits previously committed to Penn State — just as some of Campbell’s former players and verbal commits could join him in State College.
How quickly Campbell and the new staff can forge relationships with Penn State’s players will go a long way toward determining just how active the Nittany Lions must be when the portal opens on Jan. 2.
“The flash, the stars, that’s cool on signing day,” Campbell said. “But winning football games on Saturday is what we’re going to be about. That’s development. We’re going to have to be better than anybody in college football. The financial aspect, I think, is certainly unique. One of the great things that we have here is the sacrifice that Pat [Kraft] and his team have made to be competitive at the highest level, to give yourself a chance to build the best team. Now, I think sometimes in college football we can get lost on the financial piece of it. Do I think it’s important? Absolutely, but I think the reality is that [it] cannot be priority number one.
“I want young men that want to be here at Penn State and want to win championships at Penn State. It has to start there.”
Michael Cohen covers college football and college basketball for FOX Sports. Follow him at @Michael_Cohen13.
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