Matt Campbell has always done more with less at Iowa State, leading a historically unsuccessful and under-resourced program into the upper tier of the Big 12. When he left Ames for Happy Valley, though, he probably didn’t realize how much he’d still be fighting that same uphill battle.
Now, rather than trying to catch Texas Tech at the top of the Big 12, Campbell’s primary competitor at Penn State is the Ohio State Buckeyes, and rather than just recruiting regionally against Iowa and maybe Nebraska, Campbell is expected to have at least some national pull.
He’s never been that type of recruiter; his ability to morph into an elite recruiter was the biggest question when he was hired, and so far, it’s not going particularly well. Penn State has a solid 2027 class, ranking No. 20 nationally, much higher than he ever landed at Iowa State, but still seventh-best in the Big Ten now, less than two months from the early signing period.
The bigger misstep came on his Tuesday night coaches show when Campbell gave his recruiting pitch, saying, "This is College Football Town, USA. We are not living in Austin, Texas, or Columbus, Ohio, where you’re just part of it. We are it."
Matt Campbell exposed the need for Penn State to spend like a serious contender
Happy Valley has always been a unique place to recruit to. It’s just a different kind of school from most powerhouses, hours away from any major city and without a large enough airport to meet the cross-country travel demands of the new Big Ten landscape.
Now, in an NIL era where large chunks of endorsement money can come from a larger, more populous city surrounding a university, he’s essentially pitching Penn State’s biggest disadvantage and stating plainly the main reason athletic director Pat Kraft must get this program to a place where it’s spending like a serious contender, or it will slip further and further away from the one College Football Playoff appearance James Franklin delivered.
This year, The Athletic published its roster spending report, with estimates for every Power Conference program. Based on its well-vetted estimates, Penn State’s 2026 roster costs between $29 and 32 million. That’s a lot, but it’s also about $20 million less than Ohio State, Oregon, and Texas, the three biggest spenders this year, and ranks No. 7 in the Big Ten behind Nebraska and about even with Wisconsin.
Penn State doesn’t have the advantages to outrecruit its budget
With no built-up relationships in the area, no track record of true elite-level success, and a campus in a largely undesirable area without legitimate third-party NIL opportunities around, Campbell has no built-in recruiting advantages the way Kirby Smart does at Georgia to have the No. 1 team in the country with the 10th most expensive roster in the SEC.
So, either Campbell needs to hit on a hidden gem, underrecruited prospects at an unsustainably high and consistent level, or Penn State needs to start spending like a serious contender. There is a third option, however, but it’s probably the scariest for everyone involved: Penn State could more correctly align its expectations for the football program with its investment. Like it or not, over time, that might be the option that prevails.
Campbell missed the 2026 recruiting class because he was hired so late and he had a short runway to prepare for the transfer portal, so this current roster isn’t what all of his rosters will look like. If he keeps cobbling together top-20 recruiting classes with a respectable transfer portal haul and his chops as a proven talent developer, Penn State will quickly emerge from its current abyss and compete in the upper-middle class of the Big Ten.
But you don’t fire a head coach one year removed from a College Football Playoff appearance, however fraudulent the team’s two wins in the CFP were, because you desire to be competitive with the likes of Nebraska and Wisconsin. You did it because you think you can win a national championship. And unless Penn State starts spending at a level close to the Ohio States and Texases of the world, that’s not a remote possibility.
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