Penn State football head coach Matt Campbell is one of 17 Power Four head coaches entering their first season as their new program in 2026. Each school had different reasons for firing their previous head coach, meaning each first-year coach has a different line of success to meet.
The sky's the limit for Matt Campbell, but does he too have a ceiling?
For Campbell, he and two other Power Four, first-year head coaches have the highest standard to meet in 2026.
CBS Sports' John Talty says "Penn State hired Campbell to win national championships"
CBS Sports' John Talty defined "success for first-year college football coaches in 2026" and teased in the title, "Is it CFP or bust for Lane Kiffin, LSU?"
Later on in the article, that question is answered: yes. Success for Kiffin is making it into the College Football Playoff after leading Ole Miss to the CFP in 2025 before he jumped shop and putting together a top Transfer Portal class for the Tigers.
"On paper, this LSU team is ready to win big immediately," Talty wrote.
Before making it to Kiffin, however, Talty set the bar high for Campbell right from the get go. The Nittany Lions were the first program on the list of 17 with success defined for them as "Playoff" as well.
"Campbell has the arduous task of trying to take what has been a very good Penn State program and elevate it into great territory. There's no mistaking the fact that Penn State fired James Franklin only nine months removed from a national semifinal appearance because it believed it could be doing more. Penn State hired Campbell to win national championships," Talty wrote. "In Year 1 that is unlikely, but a playoff appearance would go a long way to showing AD Pat Kraft's bold decision was the right one. Campbell restocked the cabinet with the nation's No. 6 transfer class, full of former Iowa State players including quarterback Rocco Becht."
Campbell knows the expectations at Penn State. He didn't take the job not knowing there's a high standard he has to meet. Like Talty said, the national championship win won't come immediately and certainly not in his first season.
At the very least, though, squeezing into the CFP is essentially the bar Campbell should meet in 2026. Now if the regular season schedule looked more like it did in 2025, he would have more leeway with that bare minimum. That's not the case, though. The Nittany Lions have the experience, both in terms of college football veterans and returning players, and the schedule to at least make a case to be a serious CFP contender in 2026.