It's not just the Matt Campbell era beginning at Penn State this fall

The undisputed top Penn State storyline from the fall of 2025 was one that not many would have anticipated just a few short months prior: the firing of 12th-year head football coach James Franklin, only six games removed from a trip to the College Football Playoff semifinals.

The Nittany Lions, after starting the season ranked No. 2 in the AP Poll, began the year 0-3 in Big Ten play, with two losses coming at home against Oregon and Northwestern and another one coming on the road as a massive favorite against a winless UCLA team.

Losing to Northwestern, again as a massive favorite, was the final nail in the coffin, and it turned athletic director Pat Kraft's attention toward a coaching search that lasted far longer than anybody would have anticipated.

Kraft finally decided on Iowa State's Matt Campbell as Franklin's replacement, nearly two months after pulling the plug on a head coach who hadn't beaten a top-five team since 2016, and while the length of the search was heavily scrutinized, to the point where even Kraft began to fear for his job, the Nittany Lions landed on a candidate who might well be a better fit than any of the early names to whom they'd been linked anyway.

Only time will tell.

But Kraft's unwillingness to settle for mediocrity was not restricted to just the football program.

Days after the Campbell hire was confirmed, the athletic department turned their attention to another fall sport that generally doesn't generate a ton of, if any, major offseason headlines: field hockey.

Penn State decided not to renew Lisa Bervinchak Love's contract as the team's head coach, ending her 32-year run with the program. She had taken over from Char Morett-Curtiss as head coach following the 2022 season and had been on the sideline in some capacity since 1994.

It would have been easy for Kraft and Penn State to focus squarely on the big-name, revenue-driving sport like football. It would have been easy to stick with the status quo. Yet after taking all kinds of heat for how that head coaching search unfolded, he decided to launch another head coaching search for another program seeking stability after several seasons of unmet expectations.

To start the 2023 season, Penn State was ranked fifth in the Penn Monto/NFHCA Division I National Coaches Poll. With their top two scorers returning from the 2022 team that won the Big Ten regular season championship and made it all the way to the Final Four, they even earned a first-place vote.

They have not been ranked in the top 10 since.

The 2023 season ended at 9-8, with their 30th consecutive trip to the Big Ten tournament resulting in a first-round exit to an Ohio State team that they had beaten in the regular season.

They were ranked No. 16 to start the 2024 season but quickly dropped out after an 0-3 start, and despite their ensuing six-game winning streak, they could only manage a 2-6 conference record, their worst mark since 2009. They failed to qualify for the Big Ten tournament for the first time.

The 2025 team ascended to as high as No. 16 after starting the year 4-1, a stretch that included their first win over a team that had competed in the previous season's National Championship Game (Saint Joseph's) since they beat Michigan in 2021. But another 2-6 record in conference play left them out of the postseason for the second consecutive season.

The thing about the 2025 team was that they clearly had the potential to do a lot more damage than they did.

Their 15 point scorers were the most since 2019. Their 11 goal scorers were the most since 2018. They shut out Iowa, the nation's hottest offense, and the nation's top scorer in a thrilling double-overtime victory.

They started 6-0 at home, best in the Big Ten, and were the only team in the conference that did not lose a non-conference home game. They won three overtime games, including two in double overtime. Their defensive metrics against Iowa and eventual national champion Northwestern, the two teams that met for the Big Ten Tournament title, were the best in the conference.

That's simply not befitting of an eighth-place team in a nine-team league.

So the fact that they ultimately missed out on the postseason raised an important question: was the 2025 team merely a mediocre team that looked excellent in spurts, or a potentially excellent team that simply couldn't sustain it?

It's a question that Kraft clearly wanted an answer to. And it's why he brought in Hannah Prince to lead the team, following a stellar four-year run as the head coach at Saint Joseph's, back in January.

There are all kinds of facts and figures that we could regurgitate from various other articles on this topic as to why Penn State has struggled.

The 2025 season was their first without a comeback win since 2015. They lost a lead in a Big Ten home game for the first time since 2015, ending a 29-game win streak in such contests.

Their goals per game average in Big Ten play was tied for their lowest since joining the conference in 1992. They blew three leads in the closing minute of regulation. They haven't won a Big Ten road game since 2023, and five of those eight losses have been shutouts. And in Big Ten games that have been decided in regulation, they've lost 12 in a row when allowing any goals whatsoever.

But that's all ancient history now.

Now it's about turning the page. This isn't a team that's aiming only to get over the hump and qualify for the postseason, but to win games in the postseason, something the program hasn't done in four years. And under new leadership, they have what it takes to hit those targets.

Prince is a proven program builder, winning four Atlantic 10 Tournament championships during her four years in Philadelphia, and as exciting as it is for the football team to usher in a new era under Matt Campbell, it's arguably just as exciting for the field hockey team to enter a new era in which they are finally poised to capitalize on potential that has been obvious, even amid their struggles.

Her Hawks teams historically excelled on defense, where improvements in consistency will be required for Penn State to make a serious postseason push. She notably brought in associate head coach Mark Wadsley and goalies coach Janelle Ward along with her to aid the team in taking those necessary steps forward.

Eight of Penn State's scorers from a year ago, including four from a stacked freshman class, have returned in 2026 and should see expanded roles, led by senior star Natalie Freeman after she was deservedly named team captain following her breakout junior season.

In addition to another talented freshman class, the Nittany Lions are set to welcome multiple Big Ten transfers, including junior Ella Gaitan, who led Maryland in both goals and total points across the 2024 and 2025 seasons.

Gaitan scored a goal and assisted on another in Maryland's 2024 victory over Penn State, the regular season-ending game that officially brought an end to the Nittany Lions' 30-year postseason qualifying streak. Now she's on the opposite sideline aiming to help end their two-year drought.

While the Nittany Lions are unranked in the preseason Penn Monto/NFHCA Division I National Coaches Poll for the first time since the poll's 1998 inception, reigning national champion Northwestern is the only Big Ten team in the top 10, indicating that it really is a wide-open race to be inside the top seven of the conference standings.

Everything Penn State wants to achieve is still in front of them, and they have the pieces in place to achieve it all.

The 17-game 2026 Penn State Nittany Lions field hockey regular season is scheduled to begin this Friday, August 28, with live coverage of their home game against the ACC's Virginia Cavaliers set to be provided from Char Morett-Curtiss at the Penn State Field Hockey Complex field by B1G+, Big Ten Network's subscription streaming service, beginning at 4:00 p.m. ET.

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