CHICAGO -- Matt Campbell built Iowa State's program on "five-star culture" and "winning in the margins," emphasizing the steps necessary to achieve results, not only the end goals.
As Campbell takes over a Penn State program with undeniable College Football Playoff expectations, which fired his predecessor 10 months after playing in a semifinal game, he's not overhauling his approach.
"I'm not wavering," Campbell told ESPN at Big Ten football media days. "I think the misnomer has been [it's] not about results. The reality is, we have chosen to focus on the process and the people, aligning those two things as good or better than anybody to be the best we truly can be, and I think it's really why we got the results at Iowa State, and I don't know any other way."
Campbell became the winningest coach in ISU history, recording more than half (50) of the school's Big 12 wins, and reaching the league championship game in 2024. He recorded two AP top-10 finishes and won Big 12 coach of the year three times, but he never won the league or made the CFP.
In firing coach James Franklin midway through his 12th season, Penn State made it clear that a national championship was its expectation. After a meandering search, PSU hired Campbell, who is 107-70 as an FBS coach but still seeking his first conference title. The team made its first CFP in 2024 and won two games before falling to Notre Dame in the semifinal on a late field goal.
Campbell will try to replicate the success of other first-year coaches who brought sizable groups of players from their previous stops. Quarterback Rocco Becht and 23 other ISU players joined Campbell at Penn State. Although Campbell is aware of the recent Year 1 success stories, he said he's been "so in the weeds" of solidifying areas like leadership and responding to adversity.
"We're going to have to continue to grow at a rapid pace," he said. "We're going to have to experience success and failure, and how do we respond to that? That's ultimately where we'll be defined, and so I love the challenge of that. That's really been my focus -- not so much about what is success or what is failure. It's man, what are the processes?"
