Can Matt Campbell Do More With More?

The thought experiment begins Saturday. 

The thought began 271 days ago. 

The Matt Campbell era starts in Happy Valley and the whole concept of this new era for Penn State football is built on one existential question: Can Campbell do more with more? 

It’s the biggest question ultimately facing Penn State entering the 2026 football season but it’s likely a question that will not find its true answer for quite some time.

That is what Penn State needs. That is what Penn State has been missing, now approaching 40 full years since its last national championship. Though national relevancy never fully disappeared between 1986 and now, Campbell’s task at Penn State is to do what he did at Iowa State. 

But now it comes with a bigger budget, a bigger fan base and bigger expectations for what is possible.

The thought of doing more with more – and whether or not Campbell succeeds at that – will be what defines this new era of Penn State football. 

Before Campbell made Iowa State more nationally relevant, there was his stop at Toledo, a MAC program he inherited from Tim Beckman. MAC programs are often limited by resources and at that time were picking over the leftovers from kids who didn’t take Power 5 roster spots.

There, he stacked four straight winning seasons and, at the time, the highest win total since 2001 for the Rockets. 

It was the success in Toledo that led him to the position at Iowa State in 2016, where the Cyclones had one 7-win or more season since 2005. It was a program that put together just one 9-win season in the last 35 years. It had two winning seasons over the course of its two previous head coaches. 

Largely underfunded, overshadowed by both basketball and the neighboring Big Ten program in Iowa City, it was an exercise in doing more with less compared to powerhouse programs like Oklahoma and Texas – still Big 12 members when Campbell took over. 

In just his second year, Campbell won eight games. He did the same thing again the next. In 2020, he won a Fiesta Bowl. In 2024, he led the Cyclones to 11 wins, two more than the previous record last set in 2000.

In his final season in Ames, Iowa State’s athletic department spending ranked 10th out of 13 schools in the Big 12. It spent $33 million on football last year. 

Meanwhile, at Penn State, more resources had never been invested into Penn State football in 2025. 

Yet, it all crumbled over the course of three weekends in late September and early October. The team that was one drive away from playing in a national championship – as the former head coach put it in his media blitz after being fired – was now not any closer to seeing those investments yield dividends. 

Penn State spent $89 million on football in 2025, nearly three times that of Iowa State. It will likely spend even more of that in 2026 – and more after that for every year that follows, as Campbell kicks off an 8-year contract worth north of $70 million, also the most money he’s ever made. 

And Penn State needs him to take those resources – and the spending – into a new level that has been plaguing this program for years. 

Penn State – as James Franklin once infamously put it – is still very good, but not yet elite. He failed at completing that task, almost frustratingly spectacularly in 2025. In sum, he never could make more with more.

As all of these resources pour into the program, it’s also faced with the modern reality of college football. Those around it – particularly two of the richest programs in Ohio State and Michigan – are not getting any poorer. Oregon is nipping at Penn State’s heels and Indiana is the reigning national champion. 

But in 2026, Campbell only has to deal with one of those problems. There is no two-headed or three-headed monster on this schedule. 

Instead, ahead of Campbell in year one is a favorable schedule that features challenges, but the layout creates a chance for optimism in year one, especially if the pieces of this roster can come together. There’s a trip to Seattle and a White Out against USC. There are lurking surprises against Wisconsin at home and Northwestern — who will open its new stadium against Penn State.

This is a roster cobbled together with 44 transfers – 24 of which came with Campbell from Iowa State. Another 22 have never played a snap of college football. The rest are mostly leftovers from one of the most frustrating years of Penn State football ever. 

There’s Campbell’s right-hand quarterback that helped him reach those heights in Ames. There’s a defense that features key players from both the Penn State and Iowa State rosters of last year. It’s led by the return of the defensive coordinator that escaped a homecoming under Franklin. 

Those are the realities of now and while this football season – though slightly ambiguous in the reality of all of those collisions – offers a chance at a record like 10-2, it will be more important how the tone is set moving forward. 

Even on day one of the job, Campbell set the tone that this job is about winning through a specific way. Worrying about football and not the little things that football coaches shouldn’t worry about will get teams to a better place. The general feeling coming from the Lasch Building right now is nothing but positive. Campbell has made every choice in favor of earning goodwill ahead of the 2026 season – a primary task of any coach in a transition era. But that can only go so far. It only went so far in the past too.

Now it’s time for the question – or rather the experiment – to begin. 

Can Matt Campbell – who turned a perennial loser into a consistent winner with a shoestring budget compared to those around him – make the most of what he has available to him at Penn State? 

If that happens, then the thought experiment that Campbell – someone who seems solely focused on football and football only when it comes to leading this program – will be one that could send Penn State to a level it hasn’t reached yet in this century. 

It may not be answered in year one. But the outcome of the experiment will be answered by the time it’s all said and done with Campbell. 

Doing more with more is the ask. Can Campbell do that remains to be seen. 

2026 Penn State Football Schedule

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