The biggest question about Matt Campbell’s transition from Iowa State to Penn State was whether or not he could recruit at an elite level to construct a championship roster. Campbell and his staff have a great reputation for developing underrecruited talent, but the expectation in Happy Valley is to get blue-chip talent to play for the Blue and White.
You could say that Campbell has dispelled any of those concerns with his hot start to the 2027 cycle. Ahead of the spring official visit season, Campbell already has 20 recruits in the class after landing commitments from three-star defensive tackle Aniti Paiva and three-star tight end Sean Currie on Friday afternoon, and a top-five ranking in the country by 247Sports Composite.
The issue, though, is that ranking is fool’s gold, and this early top-five class is something of a house of cards.
Penn State is primed to tumble down the national recruiting rankings
None of that is to say Campbell’s class is bad. It's also not to say that he won't hold onto these verbal commitments. He’s done a great job of building early momentum on the trail and locking in the second-most verbal commitments in the country, trailing only Brent Venables’s 21 commits at Oklahoma. It is to say, however, that Penn State has almost no chance of remaining in the national top-five, or even the top 10, with the caliber of recruit Campbell has been able to land.
Despite all of the early success, Penn State has just six composite four-star commits and only one, Ohio safety Kei’Shjuan Telfair, is a top 100 player in the country. 247Sports primarily ranks by total recruiting points, and by the metric, Penn State is fifth. However, that ranking is inflated severely by the early volume in the class compared to other powerhouse programs. If you sort by average player rating, Penn State is 20th in the country, two spots behind James Franklin’s Virginia Tech Hokies.
So, as other programs catch up to Penn State's volume of commtiments, they'll easily blow past Campbell's class. Most likely, the Nittany Lions will settle somewhere inside the top 25, where Franklin's class, aside from a few exceptions, tended to land.
That rating would still be the best of Campbell’s career, so he’s undeniably elevated his standing as a recruiter. Campbell is also prioritizing fit over ranking, which is the correct way to build a roster and exactly how Curt Cignetti won big at Indiana both in the transfer portal and through high school. His running back additions, big, physical, between-the-tackles runners, and Friday’s commitment from Paiva, a 6-foot-3, 320-pound nose tackle who fits perfectly into new defensive line coach Ikaika Malloe’s defensive line identity, are two great examples of that.
This is a strong class with talented players who fit the roster well. Plus, the 2027 class still has an entire summer of camps and showcases and a senior year to play and improve their stock. Simply being Penn State commits, rather than Iowa State commits, could help them climb the rankings. This will be a good class and a strong first impression for Campbell.
However, if Penn State fans are expecting this class to hang around in the top five with the perennial recruiting powerhouses and top NIL spenders, that’s almost certainly not going to be the case. Both in-state five-star recruits, Kemon Spell and Maxwell Hiller, have fled to the SEC, and Penn State does not have a single five-star scheduled for an official visit. In fact, Telfair and in-state four-star wide receiver Khalil Taylor are the only top 100 recruits slated for a trip to Happy Valley this spring.
Campbell is proving to be a capable recruiter, not an elite one. The good news is that’s not what Penn State hired him to be. So, as long as he can continue to develop talent as well as any coach in the country, the Nittany Lions should be able to contend.
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