A Conversation With Penn State's Matt Campbell About Scars, Tailspins and Technical Fouls

Matt Campbell sat in a conference room in the Penn State football building one day last spring, bracing for the less desirable part of his job. It was interview morning, and Campbell had a series of media one-on-ones to introduce himself and his new Nittany Lions program.

In our 30-minute session, wedged between Zooms (one with preview-magazine authority Phil Steele), Campbell covered a range of ground, starting with the story of how he, who seems so even-tempered, led his high school basketball league in technical fouls.

From that interview, we caught another glimpse of the coach who grew emotional when taking over as Penn State's head coach last December. We also learned more about why Campbell talks so openly about embracing the storm that comes for every program.

This interview has been edited lightly for length and clarity.

QUESTION: Is it true that you led your high school basketball league in technical fouls?

MATT CAMPBELL: My wife brings that up all the time when my kids act a fool, yeah. I just think, from a competitive standpoint, that was something that — I don't know if I'm very proud of that — but it's certainly something that probably is true.

QUESTION: How did you get all those technicals?

MATT CAMPBELL: I played basketball more like I played football, you know? So my job was to do all the dirty work; be the rebounder, play defense. We had a really good basketball team [at Perry High in Massillon, Ohio], but my job was to kind of make sure that I was the glue to that team's engine at times.

QUESTION: Is that why you like glue players on your football teams?

MATT CAMPBELL: I love them, I love them. You're darn right. The guys that sacrifice individual statistics for the betterment of the team have always been the guys that I love.

Penn State Nittany Lions head coach Matt Campbell answers questions from the media following practice at Beaver Stadium. | IMAGN IMAGES via Reuters Connect

QUESTION: Who influenced your coaching career most?

MATT CAMPBELL: I had a high school football coach [Keith Wakefield at Perry High] who had a profound impact on me. He's a guy like [former Mount Union coach Larry Kehres]: one of the winningest high school coaches ever in the state of Ohio, in the Ohio High School Hall of Fame and a guy who probably did more with less every step of the way in his career and had elite success. And so I was cultivated by that journey, both as a football player, but more than anything, probably as a human in a critical time in my life.

My parents went through a really tough divorce, and there was a personal growth journey that I felt like he took me on. I got the same thing on my Mount Union journey. Not only was it a successful football journey — we lost one game in four years, and that was awesome — but my greater memories and moments are of how you persevered through hard and trying times in both those experiences. And I think you try to relay those messages to the players now, that you're going to forget the touchdowns, you're going to forget the scores of these games. But how you did it, who you were through the moments, how you carried yourself, that's what will last and that's what will be remembered when it's all said and done.

QUESTION: How do you do that now with the players you coach?

MATT CAMPBELL: It's probably what I love more than anything about what I get to do: Have those personal relationships and learn what makes each individual player tick. What are their purposes? What are they trying to get accomplished? Who are they as a human? And understanding that value system that every player is different. This is not a one-size-fits-all approach to coaching college football, in my opinion.

Yes, there are expectations and standards that the team needs to live by, but I think how you guide and lead every individual player through that journey has to be a little bit different because of what their purpose is, what their process is, what their background is, and how they need to be led through that journey.

QUESTION: You could have done that in a lot of different ways. Why coaching?

MATT CAMPBELL: I still think our sport is the one area in our society where, to actually have ultimate success, there is a selflessness that you have to have about the team if you truly want to reach your full potential. I love that there is a holistic approach that's bigger than yourself, that you have to get people to buy into and believe in to be able to accomplish success.

I also think our sport, a lot like life, teaches us a lot of the real challenges that come. Your team is either in adversity, you're coming out of adversity, or you're about to go in it. And how you handle those adversities holistically really defines who you are and is the narrative of what your team becomes through the journey.

QUESTION: You talk a lot about adversity. Where else did football help you handle adversity?

MATT CAMPBELL: I think becoming a head football coach at a young age and having success, it's, how do you handle it? How do you handle being humbled in this profession? It went from our 2020 season at Iowa State [the Cyclones went 9-3] to a backslide in '21 [7-6] and hitting rock bottom in '22 [4-8].

It's having the ability to take a step back and evaluate who are you as a leader and asking, what does this look like? I think all those things have been awesome for me and just for my own personal growth journey to figure out what do you really stand for, what are you really about, what's your purpose as a head football coach?

Penn State Nittany Lions head coach Matt Campbell looks on from the field during practice at Beaver Stadium. | IMAGN IMAGES via Reuters Connect

QUESTION: What did you figure out after 2022?

MATT CAMPBELL: It's easy to point the finger at everybody else, but you have to reflect back on, where did you let some of the leadership slip? We came off a 2020 season where we had elite success, the winningest season at that time in Iowa State history. You win the Fiesta Bowl, you play in the first conference championship game, you're the regular-season champion in the Big 12 for the first time in the history of the school, you beat Oklahoma for the first time, you beat Texas for the first time in the same season.

There's just all these firsts, and I think what you learn in a place like that, and probably anywhere, is, when success happens, everybody wants the credit. You probably didn't realize that until you came back in '21 and '22. I think you let silos start to form within the program. You let ego and entitlement start to settle in, maybe even personally let some of those things settle in. And you had to cross-check it really fast because you started to get into a tailspin. You started to underachieve rather than overachieve.

QUESTION: How did you get out of the tailspin?

MATT CAMPBELL: With great conversations with mentors. I did a lot of soul searching personally, and using those mentors from coach Kehres to Keith Wakefield to my dad, people that you respect in the profession. And then I just kind of really self-reflected on, where are we? What are some of the things that have happened that you don't agree with? And then having the courage to make some of those changes.

I think the great thing that you never lost was the belief of the players in the program in you, and that was really huge. And I think you saw that, because we never had a mass exodus. Our kids stayed the course. I think a lot of the guys that you see playing now [at Penn State] — Rocco Becht, Ben Brahmer, Gabe Burkle, Caleb Bacon, Cooper Ebel — these people came to us when we were either in adversity, or they were a freshman in that adversity. And they stayed the course, and they demanded to lead ourselves forward from that.

Iowa State Cyclones head coach Matt Campbell celebrates with quarterback Rocco Becht after defeating West Virginia. — Iowa State Cyclones head coach Matt Campbell celebrates with quarterback Rocco Becht after defeating the West Virginia Mountaineers. | USA TODAY Sports via Reuters Connect

QUESTION: Did you bring that up with the Penn State players who stayed, because there are a lot of parallels to draw?

MATT CAMPBELL: We've talked about it. I think one of the great things about everybody here is, whether it's a coach or a player, they've been through the highs of successes during their collegiate career, and they've also been through underachieving, no different than the coaches. We have to use our scars as our superpower to kind of navigate ourselves through what we're all going through, and that's change. And usually if we can use our scars, our wisdom of what history has taught us, let's put those things on the table, let's understand that, and then let's do everything in our power to be the best version of us coming out of this.

QUESTION: What scars did you see from the returning Penn State players?

MATT CAMPBELL: I think some of those things are certainly personal. I think the reality of going through a season where you don't reach your full potential, it's asking, why did some of those things occur from their viewpoint? And then taking that understanding and also paralleling it with, these are some of the things that we've been through. Did you feel that? Did you see that? Here's what we used to get ourselves out of that. And having the opportunity to have authentic conversations, I think those things have helped us immensely.

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