ESPN Article

All in all, this reads like a puff piece to make it sound like the Penn State coaching search wasn't a complete disaster when it was. They fell ass backwards into a good hire.

Quotes from staffers makes it sounds as if Campbell and co. were waiting for any big job to come along and he would take it. This would directly contradict what has been reported by CW that the staff was shocked he took the Penn State offer.
*DING*DING*DING*DING* WINNER. that's exactly what this article is.

SEC & Big 10 get puff pieces. It's really to hide that the big national Penn State brand hasn't been a sh*tshow like Michigan and tell the truth that PSU didn't luck into a great hire on try 5 or 6.
Well they didn’t completely **** all over us
That'd be a first by ESPN. They rarely seem to even get our team name or sometimes even our school name correct.
 
Agreed. Once Campbell began winning at ISU, we always though he'd leave for either Michigan, Ohio State, Penn State, or Notre Dame. Notre Dame didn't seem interested when they hired their current coach, as it was probably too soon for them. So this is the first time where one of those four offered him and he took it. I think fans had gotten comfortable that he was turning down all these other NFL and big CFP programs he was connected to that we led ourselves to believe he'd stay here forever. Problem is that the right programs didn't offer him until now.

I wouldn't say that OSU and ND wouldn't come calling. I think when the ND job last opened up, it may have been too soon for a program like theirs to offer Campbell considering he'd only been at a Power school for a couple years. If the job became available now, I'd think they'd consider him more. I actually believe that at this point, the only job Campbell would leave for would be Notre Dame. Now that he's at a 1B blue blood program, if he's successful there, I can see him being a prime target for Notre Dame.
ND liked the guy they had on staff and figured that by keeping him, they would retain most of their players as he was a favorite of the team. So really the ND job did not come open to outside coaches.

I was also worried about Campbell taking the Penn State job when it came open because of its location, money they could offer and the ability to recruit at a high level. My only problem with the article is the quote by Campbell that he has to get this right. Why, if he only gets to the level that Franklin got to, he gets fired and latches on to another job quickly. Is this his oppotunity to win a national championship, yes, but he will find another well paying job even if all this goes South.
 
I have it on good authority he had one foot out the door after the Colorado loss
Have heard this from several, a couple who I feel would be in the know. At the time thought it was complete BS, but now with how it all panned out & other instances coming to light, I believe it solidifies it.

Pedo St fires Franklin, immediately reaches out to Campbell who tells them not until after the season (but I'm interested). Proceeds to lose 4 in a row, many of which had moments of "WTF?" in the games.

Now all the crap about Pedo State's process & now all of this cover to cement things after the fact. They are all such poor actors it appears this is likely the case.
 
There's a lot of people on a football coaching staff. Some of them maybe more antsy to move on to a bigger job than others.

And this doesn't really make it seem like he was waiting for any opportunity, but he had a short list of right ones and this was one of them.

Pretty uninteresting article overall, although I'm curious who the industry source that bad mouthed him would be.
Agree, most everyone knew that if he was successful at ISU, PSU was one of 4 jobs that he would leave ISU for and this article confirmed that. And that's exactly what happened.

There is no mention of Jimmy Sexton in this article and Matt isn't a client of him. My guess is that Sexton bad mouthed him and Sexton is a primary reason that the PSU search was dysfunctional even though Kraft didn't help matters. There are conflicting reports that Sitake is a Sexton/CAA client. I am assuming that he is a CAA client and Sexton orchestrated the PSU/Sitake debacle when Sitake was an obvious poor fit for the PSU job, especially when compared to Matt.

And given that Matt was a top 2 or 3 candidate all along (which the Athletic reported), I am assuming there was back channel communication between Matt's camp and Kraft once Franklin was fired despite the CBS article suggesting Kraft didn't have the correct phone number of Matt's agent. That was BS IMO.
 
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Pedo St fires Franklin, immediately reaches out to Campbell who tells them not until after the season (but I'm interested). Proceeds to lose 4 in a row, many of which had moments of "WTF?" in the games.
While PSU likely did reach out to Matt's camp once Franklin was fired, blaming the four game losing streak on that is BS.

Matt didn't get Rocco, Tez, Coop and Konrardy injured. Matt didn't drop key passes that Rocco did manage to throw accurately while injured, Matt wasn't responsible for run fit or pass coverage busts that occurred during the losing streak (Heacock was). And Matt closed the season on a winning streak.
 
All in all, this reads like a puff piece to make it sound like the Penn State coaching search wasn't a complete disaster when it was. They fell ass backwards into a good hire.

Quotes from staffers makes it sounds as if Campbell and co. were waiting for any big job to come along and he would take it. This would directly contradict what has been reported by CW that the staff was shocked he took the Penn State offer.
How was the staff shocked when 2 of them were in the meetings with PSU and Campbell? If that was true, you would guess that the staff at least told each other some.
 
Have some pride man, you were at least their 5th choice. woooooooooooooooof
Dude read the article. He was 100% their top priority, but their genius AD heard from an expert that Campbell wasn’t good enough. But then a media guy said he was amazing and the AD was like oh yeah this guy is our #1.
 
While PSU likely did reach out to Matt's camp once Franklin was fired, blaming the four game losing streak on that is BS.

Matt didn't get Rocco, Tez, Coop and Konrardy injured. Matt didn't drop key passes that Rocco did manage to throw accurately while injured, Matt wasn't responsible for run fit or pass coverage busts that occurred during the losing streak (Heacock was). And Matt closed the season on a winning streak.
No, but there were a lot of head scratching decisions from the CO game on which made me question the coaching staff's mental preparedness. Not implying they tanked games on purpose, but questioning their mental focus. Campbell seemed...different this season (to me), leading up to this "calamitous" ending.

But I'm done lamenting. My hope is Rogers & Co meet or exceed the last 10 years & Cyclone fans will be able to accept the growing pains from late 2025 into early 2026. I also think I will welcome the focused, workman like approach of Rogers & not enduring all of the coach speak & platitudes.
 
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I think its pretty clear at this point Penn State didn't get most of the guys they really wanted. You'll see more pieces like this over the off season. Penn State obviously wants to make it seem like they didn't get stuck with their 5th choice. Their fans are already aware of their very public strike out(s). Things will get very toxic over there the second they start to hit any adversity.
 
I think its pretty clear at this point Penn State didn't get most of the guys they really wanted. You'll see more pieces like this over the off season. Penn State obviously wants to make it seem like they didn't get stuck with their 5th choice. Their fans are already aware of their very public strike out(s). Things will get very toxic over there the second they start to hit any adversity.

Pedo State fans, when they’re watching their team down 10 with 4 minutes to go, and the coaching staff can’t execute a tempo offense.

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Pedo State fans, when they’re watching their team down 10 with 4 minutes to go, and the coaching staff can’t execute a tempo offense.

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Or when their coach talks incessantly about “winning in the margins” and his teams frequently lose games in said margins.

Dude never shut up about the ******* margins. Meanwhile, we had a TO due to a punt hitting a blocker THREE times this year. How that is possible, I don’t even know.
 
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Campbell was a phony all along. I always kind of had that sense about him, but you know, give someone the benefit of the doubt etc..Now I feel like it's true, all that crap about culture and building a family, blah blah...show me the bag is more like it. And look, it's a free country, I don't blame the guy for doing what he feels is right for him, his career and his family. But it makes all that talk while he was here echo as REALLY disingenuous garbage. Phony indeed.

That said, new year coming up, I'm like most I'm guessing, done with Campbell as 2026 comes along. He's past tense, ready for Rogers.
 
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Campbell was a phony all along. I always kind of had that sense about him, but you know, give someone the benefit of the doubt etc..Now I feel like it's true, all that crap about culture and building a family, blah blah...show me the bag is more like it. And look, it's a free country, I don't blame the guy for doing what he feels is right for him, his career and his family. But it makes all that talk while he was here echo as REALLY disingenuous garbage. Phony indeed.

That said, new year coming up, I'm like most I'm guessing, done with Campbell as 2026 comes along. He's past tense, ready for Rogers.
When I think of phony, I think of Chizik. Campbell is something different. Sell-out is what comes to mind.
 
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Campbell was a phony all along. I always kind of had that sense about him, but you know, give someone the benefit of the doubt etc..Now I feel like it's true, all that crap about culture and building a family, blah blah...show me the bag is more like it. And look, it's a free country, I don't blame the guy for doing what he feels is right for him, his career and his family. But it makes all that talk while he was here echo as REALLY disingenuous garbage. Phony indeed.

That said, new year coming up, I'm like most I'm guessing, done with Campbell as 2026 comes along. He's past tense, ready for Rogers.
Remember when Campbell spoke about his admiration for Synder and Ferentz about their longevity at one school blah blah. Guess he is just like everyone else