As Penn State prepares for its Week 10 trip to Washington, Matt Campbell got to take the podium for his weekly Tuesday press conference, coming off a Big Ten win for the first time. Yet, even with a win in his back pocket, his message didn’t change.
Apparently, neither did wide receiver Koby Howard’s status, as Campbell clarified that he would still be considered questionable for Week 10, while Chase Sowell is “probable” to play on Saturday.
Now, let’s dig into a few of the biggest takeaways from Penn State’s weekly press conference.
5. Matt Campbell doesn’t whine about the West Coast trip
In 2024, when Penn State had to make the midseason West Coast trip in the Big Ten for the first time, we had to spend a huge portion of the week discussing the size of the runway at the State College Airport because James Franklin was so unhappy that his team had to bus to Harrisburg.
Maybe it was a fair gripe. Maybe it was a play to get the airport to build a bigger runway so the team could fly cross-country. Either way, it wasn’t particularly interesting discourse and didn’t paint James Franklin in the most positive light.
Wisely, Matt Campbell has taken a much more pragmatic approach to discussions about his team’s trip to Seattle for Week 10, detailing the reasons they’re leaving on Thursday rather than Friday, namely the early kickoff time at 12:35 p.m. PT. Campbell seems to have a pretty clear travel plan and very few complaints, so at least we don’t have to spend the whole week talking about logistics.
4. Terry Smith still has a huge role in Matt Campbell’s program
Offensive coordinator Taylor Mouser and Campbell both raved about cornerback Audavion Collins, who received his first carry offensive touch against Purdue. Collins is a developmental story that predates Campbell’s staff and is part of a cornerback room that is probably the strongest position group on the team. That’s the Terry Smith effect, and while he may not be forward-facing, the highest-paid non-coordinator in college football is having a major impact on this program.
“His meeting room is right across the hallway from mine,” Mouser said of Smith, “and I hear the way that that guy coaches. And it helps me be a better coach cause I see the way he’s getting after those guys, and the standard that he comes to meetings with every day, and the way that those guys practice.”
“They do a great job of preaching, run to the football; we have to run to the football more,” Mouser said of his offense. “You’re not just going to destroy AC (Audavion Collins) on a route; you have to want the ball more than he wants the ball. He does a good job of making everyone else around him better because he’s the hardest-working guy on the field at all times.”
Smith’s mentality has clearly trickled through the cornerback room and is permeating the football team. That’s a good thing for this program and why it was important to keep Smith around. Campbell talked about the same thing, “AC’s had to go up the rough side of the mountain,” he said of his development after raving about the consistent standard that he and fellow cornerback Daryus Dixson set for the entire team.
3. The developmental ethos around a Matt Campbell program is real
Whether it’s Mouser talking about taking all 20 minutes of his individual practice time with the offensive front seven working on blocking double teams to build an identity in the run game, or it’s Campbell raving about Cam Wallace forcing his way onto the field, you can feel the ethos of this program and understand why Campbell has long been viewed as one of the better talent developers in college football.
“What you guys saw on Saturday is what was on the practice field for the past two weeks,” Campbell said of Wallace’s emergence as RB1 against Purdue. “It was cut and dry; it was easy. I think that as coaches, when it’s not cut and dry, it’s really hard to make tough decisions, especially when there’s competition, and everyone is competing to get on the field.”
“When you leave it grey,” Campbell continued, “we can make mistakes. When you don’t leave it grey, boy, you put yourself in a great situation, and then you capitalize on it. That’s what college football still is about.”
While I take some umbridge with Campbell’s “these are not professional athletes” remark that followed and his general approach to roster building in an era when it’s almost indisputably beneficial to embrace the transactional nature of the sport, you can see the improvements that multiple players have made and get a glimpse into the culture Campbell is beginning to instill.
That even extends to his continued refusal to entertain the possibility of playing backup QB Alex Manske to develop him for next season. It may not be the right decision, but if his program is built on earning the playing time in practice and he makes a decision based on anything but that, it undercuts his message. Right now, acknowledging that it was just one win over Purdue, it feels as though that message is working.
It won’t matter if he doesn’t take enough big swings in terms of talent acquisition because you can only develop yourself so far when the top programs in the Big Ten are spending more than $50 million a year on their roster, but in conjunction with improved recruiting and aggressiveness in the portal, there’s a lot of value to a program that fosters this level of growth and sees coaching as more than just finding schematic edges.
2. The run game improvement is about more than just Cam Wallace
Wallace was obviously a focal point of many of the conversations, but Mouser focused on the offensive line when talking about the improvements in the run game, and Campbell highlighted Brock Riker’s improved health as a big reason it came together.
“I think if you really look at his video, really from USC on, and then you look the first three games before he got hurt against Buffalo, and then you look how that guy has played the last three, I think you see a confident, healthy football player, and a guy that’s playing really good football.”
It’s not just Riker; it’s the entire offensive line that played better against Purdue, largely because of the way that Campbell and Mouser stripped down the run game and focused on what their offensive line is best at.
“I think sometimes, as coaches,” Campbell said, raising his hand to take accountability, “you’re trying to sometimes over-scheme to put yourself in the best position in the moment. And I think when you’ve got the ability to sit down and really digest it all, of okay, this is what we’re best at, and let’s try to really make sure we’re fundamentally teaching, and we’re growing at what we can do best.”
1. Pat Kraft better have an “Own the Outcome” shirt on too
Rocco Becht and Ben Brahmer were both wearing shirts that read “Own the Outcome” at their Tuesday availability, and it wasn’t a coincidence. Brahmer explained that athletic director Pat Kraft gave all the players those shirts with a note in their lockers.
“Understanding that we gotta control what we can control and continue working as hard as we can in practice, and own whatever happens to us on Saturdays,” Brahmer explained the shirts to mean.
It’s not a big deal by any stretch; teams have slogans and sayings all the time. It’s just a bit of a strange message to come from Kraft to the football program that he put in a horrible position for this season by taking so long to hire a head coach and leaving Campbell without a real 2026 recruiting class and with no time to prepare for the transfer portal.
It’s especially strange for a team that, for all of its talent deficiencies relative to the top of the Big Ten, has seemingly fought incredibly hard all year and has continued to get better each week. This team doesn’t have the look of a group not taking ownership of results, but by giving the players these shirts, it makes it look like that’s what Kraft is doing.
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