Exclusive: Matt Campbell on taking the Penn State job, thanking Iowa State and much more
The Nittany Lions' new coach goes 1-on-1 with The Inside Zone.
Matt Campbell can remember it like it was yesterday.
A freshman wide receiver at Pitt at the time — don’t worry, Penn State fans, he ditched the place after a year — Campbell looked across the field during pregame warmups and saw Joe Paterno, LaVar Arrington and Courtney Brown leading the charge for the No. 8 team in the country at the time.
“Surreal,” Campbell told The Inside Zone in his first interview as Penn State’s new head coach.
Now Campbell can be the one inspiring awe in opposing teams. He’s the newest Nittany Lions head coach, getting introduced Monday afternoon after a 54-day coaching search that the school believes ended with the man who will bring home the program’s first national championship since 1986.
That Campbell already got a chance to record a podcast Saturday with Arrington, who remains very involved with Penn State, is just the icing on the cake.
Campbell arrived in Happy Valley on Sunday, greeted outside the airport by fans thrilled to welcome in their community’s newest head coach. Despite his Northeast Ohio roots, Campbell had actually never been to State College before — a fact all the more surprising when you consider that 40 percent of his Toledo rosters, per his estimation, came from Western Pennsylvania.
That job — Campbell went 35-15 at Toledo before he went to Iowa State — allowed him to develop a relationship with an area head coach at the time by the name of Terry Smith.