Inside the 'Netflix Documentary' That Led Penn State to Hire Matt Campbell

Matt Campbell said was close to leaving Iowa State twice before. He detalied why the third time, with Penn State, was the charm.

Matt Campbell, left, shakes hands with Penn State Athletic Director Pat Kraft while being announced as the Penn State Nittany Lions new head coach during a press conference at Beaver Stadium. | Matthew O'Haren-Imagn Images

STATE COLLEGE | Matt Campbell wasn't part of Penn State's coaching search for the first 51 days. In October, the Iowa State coach watched from Ames after James Franklin was fired and wondered, "What's going on there?" But he doesn't have an agent, doesn't take coaching calls during the season and didn't hear from anyone at Penn State, so Campbell didn't consider himself a candidate.

Until late on a Wednesday night in early December. That's when Penn State Athletic Director Pat Kraft, spurned the day before by BYU's Kalani Sitake, reached out to a mutual contact he and Campbell share in Toledo. "Pat wants to talk to you, if you'd be interested," the person told Campbell. Two days later, he agreed to become the Penn State football coach.

"Probably be a Netflix documentary at some point," Kraft said Monday at Campbell's introductory press conference. "The way that Matt and I got to each other was through some twists and turns in the road. But I needed a partner that I had trust and belief in to take that role, because it was so important. This department needs a leader for this role and this institution."

With that, Kraft turned college football's most tortured search, one that was called a "disaster" just days before his call to Campbell, into a success story. Matt Millen, who got to know Campbell while broadcasting his games at Toledo a decade ago, sent Kraft a congratulatory text Saturday night.

"I said, 'Pat, you hit a grand slam,'" Millen said.

So how did Campbell, who spent a decade at Iowa State turning away a serial list of suitors, find his way to Penn State? In a 30-minute interview session with beat reporters after his introductory press conference Monday, Campbell described a quick process filtered through a long history in Ohio and Pennsylvania and why, finally, this was the right time to leave Iowa State.

'Man, what's going on there?'

Penn State coach Matt Campbell invokes Todd Blackledge, Joe Paterno and Kyle Brady in his introduction. pic.twitter.com/Ikjy9iejgv

— Mark Wogenrich (@MarkWogenrich) December 8, 2025

Campbell said that he was close to leaving Iowa State, where he is the program's winningest head coach, twice before. In both cases he slept on the offers and declined them.

"I don’t even know if I could put on a scale how hard it was [to leave Iowa State]," Campbell said. "It was really hard, at times paralyzingly hard to make the decision. You’ll find out that there’s nothing more important than my word and relationships."

Then, Penn State happened. Campbell grew up in Massillon, Ohio, about 230 miles from Penn State, and spent summers with his grandparents in Carmichaels, a southwestern Pennsylvania town where his family worked in the coal mine. His wife Erica's family is in Ohio. All that made Campbell ponder the Penn State opening in October.

"I would be naive to not tell you that when the Penn State job opened, you wonder, 'Man, what’s going on there?'" Campbell said. "You always said, there would be one or two places you would consider other than Iowa State. I’ll be really honest with you, because of my family background, because of my grandparents, my great grandparents growing up in this region, [Penn State was appealing].

"We loved living in Ames, Iowa, and it’s what we’re going to love about living here. It’s an unbelievable place to raise our family and the tradition of this place. There were some things, you’re like, maybe this place is something that is meant to be someday."

But Campbell said he doesn't have an agent and doesn't conduct interviews during the regular season, so even third-party discussions didn't materialize. As Matt Fortuna reported at his The Inside Zone substack, Penn State attempted to contact Campbell early in the search process, but the message never reached the head coach.

And then on Dec. 2, Kraft's pursuit of Kitake went 1) public and 2) sideways, leading to his Dec. 3 call with Campbell. The next day, Campbell spoke with Penn State President Neeli Bendapudi. He said those conversations convinced him that the Penn State opportunity was real and something he wanted to pursue.

"I don’t really care how the process went outside of it," Campbell said. "When the phone call came, it went pretty fast after that. Talking to President Neeli and talking to Pat, you knew these were the right people you wanted to be around. Regionally, obviously, what this place has stood for for a long time certainly did have interest from me."

'This is really special'

A general view of the scoreboard at Beaver Stadium as Matt Campbell is announced as the Penn State Nittany Lions new head coach during a press conference at Beaver Stadium. | Matthew O'Haren-Imagn Images

For the past five years, Campbell has been named to nearly every coaching hot board for a Power 4 opening. He received serious NFL interest, notably from the Detroit Lions and Chicago Bears. Campbell wouldn't name the two jobs he was close to taking but did detail why Penn State's offer proved different.

"This time, from Neeli’s standpoint, she’s a wow," Campbell said of Penn State's president. "She has the wow factor of character, integrity, what she was looking for. After getting off that phone call, I thought, [These are] the type of people that I want to associate with.

"From Pat’s standpoint, he's uber-competitive, wants to be a partner, wants to be an asset to you in this ever-changing world of college football. You can’t do this by yourself. You have to be a partner. Those two things were unwavering for me. This is really special.

"Then there's the regionality of bringing my family back home. ... I can’t lie and tell you that it didn’t have a big impact. It certainly did as well. Putting all of those things together pushed it over the edge for me to say, it’s time."

Matt Campbell has landed in State College pic.twitter.com/shzCwhfJSA

— Audrey Snyder (@audsnyder4) December 7, 2025

When his plane landed in State College on Sunday, that marked Campbell's first time at Penn State. Though he grew up watching Todd Blackledge, he never went to a game at Beaver Stadium. Though he played high school football hoping to be Kyle Brady, he never attended a Penn State football camp.

The next few days will be frantic. Campbell met a few players Sunday night at the football building and gathered with the entire team at 2 p.m. Monday. This week, he plans to meet with the entire roster individually. For them, he plans to answer the same questions everyone else asked.

"Why did you come to Penn State?" Campbell said. "What do you think is going well here, what’s not going well, how the heck do we do it better?"

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