Andy & Ari On3 - Penn State FINALIZING Deal with Matt Campbell | Could he coach Nittany Lions to a national title?

Episode Date: December 5, 2025

Penn State’s long search for James Franklin’s replacement looks like it has come to an end as the Nittany Lions are finalizing a deal to make Matt Campbell its next head coach. Can Campbell elevate Penn State to a place Franklin couldn’t?  Our show is presented by BetMGM! If you haven’t signed up for BetMGM yet, use bonus code CFB and you will get up to a $1500 First Bet Offer on your first wager with BetMGM! Here’s how it works: 1. Download the BetMGM app and sign-up using bonus code CFB.2. Deposit at least $10 and place your first wager on any game.3. You will receive up to $1500 in bonus bets if your bet loses! Just make sureyou use bonus code CFB when you sign up! Make this college football season one for the history books. Make it legendary. See BetMGM.com for Terms. 21+ only. US promotional offers not available in New York, Nevada, Ontario, or Puerto Rico. Gambling problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER (Available in the US). Call 877-8-HOPENY or text HOPENY (467369) (NY). Call 1-800-NEXT-STEP (AZ), 1-800-327-5050 (MA), 1-800-BETS-OFF (IA), 1-800-981-0023 (PR). First Bet Offer for new customers only. Subject to eligibility requirements. Rewards are non-withdrawable bonus bets that expire in 7 days. In partnership with Kansas Crossing Casino and Hotel.  This show is also sponsored by Modelo! Some things in life are just made for each other. Peanut Butter and jelly. Macaroni andcheese. Modelo and college football. If you’re watching this, it means you live and breathe football. All season long. You know what that makes you? A Full-Time Fan. Which means you deserve a Modelo. Because football wouldn’t be the same without you. Modelo is the official beer sponsor of The College Football Playoff. Watch our show on YouTube! https://youtube.com/live/RIZivub6HZoHosts: Andy Staples, Ari WassermanProducer: River Bailey Interested in partnering with the show? Email [e-mail] Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Welcome to a special emergency edition of Andy and Ari on three presented by Bed-MGM, except it's not Andy and Ari on three. It's Andy and Pete on three because Ari's on an airplane. So I figured to talk about Matt Campbell getting the Penn State job, let's talk to the guy who broke the story that Matt Campbell was finalizing a deal with Penn State. He is headed from Iowa State where he is the winningest coach of all time, or well, being his coach in Cyclones history. Yep.

And now headed to Penn State where his job is. is just, oh, I don't know, do what James Franklin couldn't and win a national title. Yeah, this has been a Penn State search that's over 50 days, I believe, now. It seems like they're closing in on a hire. They're trying to finalize a contract with Matt Campbell. It's taking quite a few twists and turns in the last four days. They thought Kalani Sataki was going to be the guy. They put an offer sheet in front of Jeff Brom.

He stays with Louisville, and it appears that they're going to get it done with Matt Campbell. All the while, there's been some push to hire Terry Smith, the interim heck. yeah there's no ice cream magnet that can just jump in because it i mean colani sotaki it felt like was was potentially headed that way and then the CEO of crumbull cookie stepped up the v yu makes him a great deal he stays um it seems like that time has passed yeah for iowa state but matt campbell has done an amazing job at iowa state and this is the thing this is one of those i think people are going to look at the record and they're going to say well how do you think this guy he's 72 and 55 right at iowa state but you have to understand

what iowa state was before he got there you know iowa state was one of the hardest place places to win in college football and because like paul rhodes had some good years there yeah but you could never consistently win there and like just being able to go to a bowl game used to be a big deal at iowa state now that's an every year thing for them so he's a three-time big 12 football coach the year he's 72 and 55 and 11 seasons He's gone to two conference title games, which, you know, maybe the average Penn State fan that raise their noses up and say, oh, that, you know, that's the standard for nitty line football.

Well, Iowa State, I mean, that's a lot. So you're going to bring in a coach who knows how to build a program, has done it at Toledo, and now Iowa State, bringing a guy who's turned down NFL jobs and SEC jobs to stay at Iowa State, and you're also going to get a coach, too, who is going to have more NIL resources than he's ever worked with than his career, and you would think that's going to transpire into a pretty high-level roster golf football.

This is where I'm curious here, because Matt Campbell's done it very well at a place where you don't have access to that level of talent. I always thought his next move was to a big-time, big-10 job, or to the NFL. This is the big-time, big-10 job. He'd always kind of not seemed like he wanted to be in one of those SEC-type jobs. Now, here's, but here's my thing. I don't think Penn State's any different than that now. No. Penn State, Ohio State, Michigan, they're just like Alabama, just like LSU.

Like those jobs are all the same now. Well, Penn State fired James Franklin because they want a new standard. Right. They want to constantly playing Big Ten title games. They want to constantly make the playoff. And after the early season losses to Oregon, UCLA Northwestern, you know, Penn State was done with the James Franklin era. So Matt Cable is going to have some runway, but he's not going to have the most in terms of winning football games. This is the highest pressure job of any of the ones that opened this year.

Obviously, LSU is going to be very high pressure, too, for LN Kiffin. But, you know, Brian Kelly was winning eight, nine games a year at LSU. James Franklin was winning 10, 11. He won 13 games the year before. Yeah. And that's the crazy part. That's what makes this so difficult to figure out. There's a couple other things here, too, that are going to be interesting.

So you look at Matt Campbell, he's a guy who has not had to. recruit four or five stars, but he's developed two and three stars at an extremely high level. But it's a different, this is different ball game. Different ball game, different level of play in the Big Ten, different expectation. Now, the other interesting twist here, too, is, you know, James Franklin took him to a set to see a pre-semin final game. Yes, he struggled against the AP top 10 teams. You are going to wonder, though, you know, Matt Campbell has done so much.

It'll be interesting to see if he can live up to the standard James Franklin is built. That's a lot to ask for in the Big Ten in this day and age. But obviously, Pat Kraft, administration, and high-level boosters have goals and aspirations for Penn State to constantly be competing with Ohio State and Oregon. So I don't sure how much we should talk about this, but I do think, I want to address the elephant in the room because that Pat Kraft leaked audio, the alleged Pat Kraft leaked audio that definitely sounds like Pat Kraft has been floating around the internet now. Pennsylvania is a two-party recording state. I don't think he consented to that So he's probably got a case there But I thought, and it's interesting

Because I think what he was What would you heard Alleged Pat Kraft saying In that meeting with Penn State players I don't think it makes him look bad In light of this hire No I think it makes him sound like

Everybody who roots for Penn State Because he basically said You know Penn State has gotten to the point where it settles for being second best. These are things Penn State fans have been saying for years. Yeah. I mean, it's all things that I think a Penn State fan would agree with. I mean, minus the part that it's all public now.

Yeah, now if, but if he'd had to, because I think if Matt Campbell had said, thank you so much. I'm flattered, but I really like it in Ames. I'm going to stay in Ames. Yeah. And they probably would have promoted Terry Smith at that point. Yeah.

Then I think there'd be a lot more blowback. Yeah. Based on what we heard. And listen, this search is taking so many twists and turns, right? You got Matt Roan and Kurt Signetti getting new contract extensions because of this job. Matt Campbell was always a name that we heard about when the job opened. It always made sense. He's a proven winner.

He's someone who's continually turned down opportunities, but we always knew like a sexy Big Ten job was going to be the spot for him. Looks like Penn State's it. But I guess the other thing, too, is he's obviously a guy who wants to prove that he can win in the Big Ten. and not every coach out there wanted to be the last phone call, but it appears that Matt Campbell is aware. I also think there were probably some coaches who did not want the pressure of this job, because, again, you are not coming in for somebody who was fired because they were going five and seven.

Right. You were coming in for somebody who was fired. Now, they weren't having a good year this year, but it was essentially because they were going 10 and 2 and losing to Ohio State in Michigan and beating everybody else. That is the crux of the matter. here. Yeah, that's it. That's it. And my biggest question mark through this whole thing is going to be, what's the runway? Because while Penn State fans have expectations here, Penn State also just signed

only two players on national signing day. James Franklin is going to try to take so much of the roster with him to Virginia Tech. There's going to have to be some understanding here. And you're going to run into James Franklin on the recruiting. Oh, over and over and over again. Yeah, all the time. All those places that James Franklin took high level talent from is now a war. zone, quote-on-quote, when it comes to recording. So here's my question about recruiting. Sure. And I'm not talking about high school recruiting.

We're talking about portal recruiting and everything else. Is this the time when Penn State kind of switches to maybe an NFL personnel model? Because I'm not sure, one, I'm not sure about Matt Campbell recruiting the four-and-five-star type player because he's never had to before. Yeah. He was at Toledo. And then he was at Iowa State. state. And, you know, he's, he's not from that world. Right. And he hasn't operated in that world.

So do you bring in somebody who can operate in that world? Yeah, you know, I think there'll be an answer for the days to come. He has a really good front office out in Ames and they've done a lot of great work together. Obviously, though, handling the amount of money and contracts that Penn State is going to be willing to offer in the portal and recruiting. I mean, we're talking about probably a top 15 funded roster that Penn State is committed to. I won't be surprised if, you know, some front office types come in to help run that the site of the operation. And this is why I wondered at a certain point, would Matt Campbell ever take a big time college football job? Yeah. And this is not to denigrate Iowa State.

Iowa State's a great place. There's a reason he stayed there so long. There's a reason he turned down other jobs. Yeah. But I wondered if he would ever go for the big, Big Ten job like we all thought, or just skip to the NFL because the NFL at least has. as, you know, rules, they have a draft. You're not recruiting. You're just trying to build culture and coach the team.

So I kind of wonder, I'll be curious to see when they talk about the process, this Pat Kraft, the athletic director, get up and say, hey, we're going to hire somebody who's just going to let him coach a team. We heard that actually. At Florida. We heard it at Florida. We heard it from Lane Kiffin at LSU. He said, one of the best thing, Virge Osbury said to me is, you just coached the team.

Don't worry about it. Now, Kiffin wants to be more involved. in personnel. He was a more traditional college head coach. John Sumerall will have a former NFL general manager and Dave Caldwell that he's working with who they're kind of parallel on the org chart. Yeah. Yeah.

I think that you look to someone like Matt Campbell, though, and the reason why they won at Iowa State is he knows everyone walking in his building. He knows all the guys they're bringing in. He knows what a player can be developed into. I think he's still going to want to have those same kind of expectations at Penn State in terms of the quality of player in person he's bringing in. So what that type of front office looks like will be very interesting to see. Really interesting question from Ryan in the chat.

If Matt Campbell wins eight or nine games per year, is that a failure? And Ryan says it's likely what occurs. I don't know that that's likely what occurs because I think if you can win nine games at Iowa State, you can win 13 games at Penn State. So, yeah, I don't think he's only going to win eight or nine games a year at Penn State. But it is failure if that's all you do. Yes, it is definitely failure, and they'll fire you if that's the prolonged, you know, performance. That that's not good enough.

You're going to have to be double digits. And more than anything else, beat the teams that you have equal or lesser talent than every once in a while. Now, who's more used to having less talent than Matt Campbell? Yeah. But at Penn State, he's not going to have less talent most of the time. He will have more talent most of the time. but then there will be Ohio State and there will be Oregon and there will be Michigan

where he's either going to be equal or maybe slightly less and he's going to have to figure that out. But let's be real here about Matt Campbell. He's not Kurt Signetty. He's not going to say Google me in his first few comments. He's going to be the kind of guy who says, we're going to build a team that breeds successful young men

and we're going to win football games. And he's, you mean, look at the hat, the brim of his hat, you know, whenever you look at it. He's a guy who's all about hard work. He's a guy who is all about doing stuff behind the scenes. So it'll be interesting to see how it all works at a place like Penn Samuels. Yeah,

that Matt Campbell's been able to cultivate. Breece Hall. Breece Hall, Will McDonald. Will McDonald's the first round, edge rusher. Brock Purdy's the most famous one, though. Yeah, by far.

And now he was Mr. Irrelevant in the draft, but clearly that was wrong. Like you should have been a very good quarterback the last couple of years at Iowa State, too. Absolutely. So they've had really good players that, Jaden Higgins and Jalen O'L,

the receivers last year. I mean, think about this. Think about if Penn State. Yeah. If the 2024 version of Penn State had had Jaden Higgins and Jalen O'all. Oh, yeah. Like, they would have won the national title. Yeah, they wouldn't win great.

Now, the other, you know, focus on all this, too, is what is Iowa State going to do? It's the only big 12 job open. It's probably racking my head here. It's the only P4 job open right now, too. That's going to be interesting and see how they handle that. Yeah. It's a tough time of year. The portal opens in about a month now.

You look across, like, Jason, Candle at Toledo might not be the sexiest name, but someone who came up with with Matt Campbell with with Matt Campbell for they're both from Mount Union yeah the the D3 powerhouse and Jason Candle replaced Matt Campbell at Toledo and has it's in a situation where he's interviewed for jobs and hasn't quite found the route one right one for a Mac title in the month yeah yeah and then they're almost always in the mix for a neck title so yeah like that's I think that's the the model you want um you know some other names we talked about where we're guys that had won Tyson

Helton at Western Kentucky Andy Colton Nakey, the Penn State Offense Coordinator, John Hecock, he's obviously the successful. And that's the thing. If he can take that job, I would assume he does. And that's another question I think people have had.

If Haycock doesn't go with Campbell, is Jim Null is the next defense coordinator? Okay, so Jim Null, and I've talked to somebody about this in recent days, Jim Nell is still under contract. Yeah. He's the highest paid defensive coordinator in country. That hasn't changed. Matt Campbell probably is not going to get anybody forced on him.

He had a lot of leverage in this situation. So I don't think if he doesn't want to work with Jim Nulls, he wouldn't have to. But if he, like, remember, he's gone against Jim Nulls in the Big 12. Jim Nolz had a great defense at Oklahoma State that Matt Campbell had to deal with. Yep. So he may be like, I get to work with that good. Sure, let's go. Let's do it.

Let's go. So it's going to be interesting. And, you know, most of all, too, Penn State's got to close us out there in, like, the final stages of a negotiation. Um, they flew to Ames, Iowa on Thursday, uh, the communication has continued to pick up in the last 24 hours. It seems like it's headed towards a done deal. Yeah. They're in the final stages to try to get this deal done. Um, it would be a disaster if they can't finish this off. If they can't finish the drill here, that's very bad. Not me, but yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No, I, and I'm not saying

that in, in, because it got out. Yeah. Yeah. I'm saying it would be a disaster period because at this point you're almost out of time and this is this is as good of a hire and this is this is one of the people when james franklin was fired that we immediately if you had told me the day james franklin was fired they're going to wind up with that camel and like okay good job i was talking to a couple agents too last night about this and just some people in the industry and you know i don't know if i agree with the sentiment but there's going to be an argument to be made that this is like a top two or top three higher of this cycle of penn state you know lanes the plane here of matt campbell well the thing is think about all the people who have wanted Matt Campbell yeah over the years the list

can go on and on you know because I I think people who pay attention to college football who study college football understand how difficult it is to win at Iowa State uh I'm looking at the years before he got there so the last three Paul road seasons I'm this is a bad at math show but I it looks to me like they were they were eight and 28 the last three years and in the previous 20 before he got there. I'm not counting many winning seasons. No, he's the winning his coach in school history, and he's been there for 11 years.

Let's put it this way. Through the 90s, there are a lot of, you know, ones, twos, and threes in the wind. Yeah, yeah. Listen, it's going to take some time to get this roster back to where everyone at Penn State wants it, and maybe that's not something a lot of fans want to hear, but it's reality.

Maybe that does give him the runway. So maybe the prolonged part of this coaching search and James Franklin getting the Virginia Tech job because let's be real, that is a huge factor in all this. Yeah, that's a massive factor. That pillaging of the roster probably does give him a little bit of runway. Like you don't have to win 10 games year one or you're fired. But I'm telling you right now, Pete,

if he doesn't win 10 games year one, native is going to be wrestles. Like, this is the highest pressure situation. Yeah. Because they've been so good. Yeah. You're trying to get from, you're trying to get from good to great. Yeah.

And that's the hardest step. That's going to be the hardest part. You're going to have to give him at least two years to get this roster to where everyone wants it so that he can constantly be in the Big Ten title, you know, conversation so he can be in the college football playoff. And you're looking at a Big Ten that is by far probably the most difficult it's ever been when you look through it to top five or six. team. So it's going to be, you know, Penn State is, I think, finished with six ones in the regular season. I think that by the end of year two, that there's going to be pressure for Matt Campbell to have 10 or 11 ones. Oh, yeah. I think there's no question about that. I think the only reason he won't have it near one is like I just said, because the roster turnover. That's it. Like the pressure

gets as soon as you feel like you've got your guys in, which in this day in age of college football is your two. Yeah. You better, you better start winning. there's other conversations we had to help how many players does matt campbell bring with him from iowa state we've seen that work in the past when you look at kurt signetti bringing guys from james madison to indiana we'll see how much mac campbell wants to do that mac campbell also strikes me as the kind of guy he wants to leave iosate in a better place so he's not going to be trying to get all his signing class to no they're not going to get out of their yeah that's not going to happen that's not how mac campbell operates well i i'm excited to see what happens penn state's got to got to finish

the drive here. We got to lay in the plane. Get the deal done. But this, again, if you told me on the day James Franklin was fired, they will wind up with Matt Campbell. You didn't have to leave. You could leave the part out about the everything else. The cookie guy by, you know, making sure Kalani Stalki stayed at BYU, like everything else

would have mattered. I said, okay, good hire. Yeah. I'll take it. And I think that's probably where you should be at if you're a Penn State fan right now.