Preseason No. 17 coaches poll ranking signifies the Matt Campbell reset Penn State needed

The preseason coaches poll for the 2026 season was released on Tuesday and featured Matt Campbell’s Penn State Nittany Lions at No. 17, the sixth-highest-ranked team in the Big Ten. It perfectly encapsulates the major reset the program needed after crumbling under the weight of last season’s lofty expectations. 

This time a year ago, Penn State was coming off a College Football Playoff semifinal appearance, and with James Franklin back at the helm for Year 12, slotted in at No. 3 in the coaches poll behind Texas and Ohio State. In the AP poll, the Nittany Lions were No. 2. The season, as Penn State fans well know, didn’t play out that way. 

After his unceremonious midseason firing, Franklin spoke with former Penn State tight end Adam Breneman about how he let the team abandon its ‘1-0 mentality’ and think about the bigger picture. Considering he was fired six games into the year, he also spoke about how he regretted that decision. 

Now, with Campbell in charge and a preseason No. 17 coaches poll ranking, the pressure is off Penn State. Long-term, this program belongs at the top and needs to be strong enough to shoulder the weight of lofty expectations, but for right now, under the radar is the best place to be. 

Matt Campbell will need some time to build Penn State back up

Matt Campbell brought in a massive transfer portal haul in Year 1, adding 39 players, including over 20 of his former Iowa State Cyclones. He has a veteran quarterback in Rocco Becht and imported his top-five pass-catchers from last year’s team. That’s a recipe to hit the ground running. 

It's also the reason that Penn State is No. 17 and not unranked like other traditional powerhouses with first-year head coaches: Florida and Auburn.

Still, even with the best pieces of Iowa State coming to Happy Valley, there’s no reason to view the Nittany Lions as real Big Ten contenders. That Iowa State team managed just an 8-4 record while playing in the Big 12, which is not nearly the same level of competition. A soft schedule has opened the door for a 10-win season in Year 1, but to get Penn State where it’s truly competing for national titles, Campbell has a long way to go. 

Campbell has never been an elite recruiter. He’s never been a coach who dominates the transfer portal window either. Maybe that will change now that he’s at Penn State because he has the resources that he lacked in Ames, but most likely he’ll stick to his roots as a developmentally-minded head coach. 

The baseline of the player he’s developing will undoubtedly rise at Penn State, so the timeline may speed up some, but it’s still hard to imagine his roster looking like a finished product into Year 3 or Year 4. 

In today’s day and age of college football, that’s a long runway for a coach. He can’t win five or six games in the interim, of course, but Penn State seems willing to have patience. Preseason No. 17 in 2029 is a concern. Preseason No. 17 in 2026 is just fine.

LSU, the other big-time program that replaced its head coach this offseason, is No. 13 after Lane Kiffin's major portal spending spree. Kiffin is immediately under pressure to deliver, which can create an incredibly volatile situation, more than Kiffin creates simply by being himself. Penn State doesn't have that pressure in the immediate term, which allows Campbell to take the long view and hopefully build a better, more sustainable program in the long run.

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