12/11/25

12/11/2025

Iowa State head football coach Matt Campbell’s decision to accept Penn State’s head football coaching position devastates Cyclone fans, gladdens Nittany Lions fans, and brings big-time football’s structure front and center in the collective mind of college football fandom, especially here in Iowa.

Iowa State athletic director Jamie Pollard got it right: “Matt Campbell owes Iowa State nothing because he did more than we could’ve ever, ever dreamed he could do as our head coach.” Campbell’s decade-long tenure brought the Cyclones from so-so status to perennial contender in the Big 12 Conference. And his obvious respect and care for his players endeared him to them and to Cyclone Nation everywhere.

Pollard assured Cyclone fans that money was not a reason Campbell left for the State College, PA, campus, and I believe him. Campbell has had any number of opportunities to leave Ames over the past several years, some of them more lucrative than his position with the Cyclones. 

It’s pretty apparent that Campbell is going to Penn State for personal reasons. He grew up in Massillon in northeast Ohio, a widely acknowledged football town just four hours from State College. His mother has cancer and his wife Erica’s mother is also ill. Their daughter Katie will attend college next year in Washington, DC, 3 1/2 hours from the Nittany Lions.

But Campbell’s new salary certainly didn’t discourage him from making the move. At Iowa State his contract would have paid him $5 million a year plus incentives for the next six years. At Penn State he’ll reportedly be making $10 million-plus a year for the next eight years. 

In addition, Penn State promises him $30 million in name, identification, and likeness (NIL) money for his team and $17 million for his staff. His Penn State salary makes him about 10th nationally in college football coach compensation and third in the Big Ten.

I doubt that Campbell would have left Iowa State for a smaller school or a smaller salary no matter how close it was to Massillon.

The advent of NIL money, allowing players to get paid for advertising in which they appear, means that large universities with deep pockets and wealthy supporters will even more outstrip smaller schools with average resources for Five-Star recruits, and will be Land of Oz temptations for players for whom fame and fortune make a difference. That inevitable situation also applies to coaches driven by those factors as well.

For Campbell, I don’t believe those temptations were the drivers. For coaches like Lane Kiffin, who recently left the Mississippi head coaching job to take the similar position at Louisiana State, money and prestige appear to make the difference.

It hasn’t always been this way. Not all that long ago, in the absence of TV largess and NIL coffers, it seemed as if more head coaches remained at a college or university for more years than now. Some still do—Iowa’s Kirk Ferentz for one. 

Back then that was true even for smaller schools: head coaches at Division Three colleges would sometimes stay there even when offered higher-profile/higher-paying jobs. Sometimes when the school was their alma mater, just their loyalty held them there. 

It boils down to a case of career vs. location. And that’s certainly not unique to coaching.

If you see your destiny as a staircase of advancement to ever-larger, ever-richer venues, you don’t stay in a job more than a few years. But if you identify with a particular place or community for whatever reason—your hometown, your relatives, your friends, the culture, even the weather—it becomes a long-term commitment.

There’s no shame in moving on to a higher-paying job with more responsibility and more pressure to perform. It helps the national economy thrive and grow. If the move works better for your family as well, that’s an added benefit.

But there’s likewise no shame in staying in one place where you succeed and hold the gratitude and respect of your community. If that’s not the case, you’ll know it soon enough, and can make your plans to move on. 

If you turn down fame and fortune for more enduring values, more power to you. ♦