EMERGENCY COLUMN: After A Few Swings and Misses, Kraft Connects on A New Hire…and A New Era of Penn State Football

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I’ve always hated the term “home-run hire” when it applies to coaches (or anyone else, really).

Sure, I suppose it’s better than a double hire or a single hire or a ground into double play hire, but my problem with it is anyone can hit a home run. Even the 175-pound second baseman gets a fat pitch now and then and pulls it over the fence.

If we are going to stick with a baseball analogy, I’d argue it’s better to have an ace hire than a home-run hire. Aces make it tough on the whole lineup. They compensate for a lack of defense or a competent bullpen or run support. And aces travel—they’re good in any ballpark, in any weather, against any style of offense. Keep your home-run hires. The aces are the guys who determine your ceiling and your floor.

That brings us to Pat Kraft and Matt Campbell. For a time, it looked as though Penn State’s AD, who was leading the search for James Franklin’s replacement sans firm or committee, had fouled a ball off his foot at best or swung and missed and watched his bat fly into the seats and knock out the commissioner’s wife at worst. All sorts of big-name, home-run candidates were flying off the board, most notably BYU’s Kalani Sitake, who was apparently, ahem, rounding third with Penn State before a cookie magnate swooped in and convinced him to stay in Provo. You know, usual coaching search stuff.

While there is a point to be made that the process by which Kraft got his guy is important (and it, um, wasn’t a great process), the larger point is that he got his guy, 54 days after parting ways with Franklin. And now the larger question: Is Campbell an ace?

The 46-year-old native of Massillon, Ohio comes to State College with a resume very similar to the one Franklin, who was 42 when he became Penn State’s head coach, had at the outset of his Lion career. Both men played at small schools and distinguished themselves primarily as offensive assistants. As head coaches, both won at programs that had previously been college football wastelands; Franklin at Vanderbilt, Campbell at Iowa State. And both did so largely without five-star or even four-star talent. Like Franklin, Campbell is bringing a good chunk of his previous coaching staff with him to Penn State, including veteran defensive coordinator Jon Heacock. And, like Franklin, he is known as a culture builder and a players’ coach.

The differences are that Campbell’s rebuild at Iowa State (10 years) was longer and more extensive than Franklin’s at Vanderbilt (three years). It peaked with an 11-win season last fall that had the Cyclones predicted by some to make the 2025 playoff, though they went just 5-4 in Big 12 play this season. And Campbell has as many wins over top-10 opponents (four) in 10 games as Franklin did in 25 such matchups.

He will also have NIL support on the order of $30 million per year, according to Matt Fortuna of The Inside Zone, the type of recruiting fuel that Franklin requested but never received here. That money could help Campbell and his staff compete at a recruiting level they’ve yet to reach and will need to at least sniff if they’re going to compete for Big Ten titles and/or national championships.

Aces, to return to our pitching analogy, can do the job in various ways. Some will overpower you with terrific stuff—a fastball that doesn’t look much different than a change, a nasty slider—while some will use pinpoint control or a bunch of groundball outs to compensate for a lack of dynamic pitches. Campbell will need talent and lots of it, there’s no doubt about that, but he will also have to develop lesser-known players, as he already has with the likes of Brock Purdy and David Montgomery. And he’ll have to make in-game adjustments, especially against the top teams on the schedule, to win the sort of big games that Franklin couldn’t. Franklin was excellent at providing individual upgrades to his staff but sometimes struggled to blend the scheme with the talent into offenses that had a consistent identity. Campbell did that at Iowa State but the competition he’ll face in an expanded and loaded Big Ten is another animal.

Campbell said all the right things during his first round with Penn State media on Monday, mentioning that his grandparents were Pennsylvania natives and huge Joe Paterno fans, showing some emotion about what the job means to him, being classy and complimentary to Iowa State, Franklin and Bill O’Brien, and conveying confidence without cockiness. And, whether it was his idea or Pat Kraft’s, retaining (spot starter) Terry Smith earned Campbell huge bonus points with the lettermen, current players, and fan base and should help make what will be a tricky transition year anyway a little smoother.

Now, though, it’s time for Campbell to start throwing. He needs to start yesterday on the recruiting front, on building his staff and combing through the transfer portal to counterbalance what will be heavy personnel losses. He needs to convince the building blocks of the current roster to stick around and get to know them as players and people. He needs to press flesh with fans, not only the ones who might donate six figures but also those who will sit in the upper sections of the new Beaver Stadium bleachers.

We probably won’t know if he’s an honest-to-goodness ace until it’s the fourth quarter in Columbus or the first quarter in a playoff game. And just as a starting pitcher needs run support and defense to win games, Campbell will need significant resources and excellence from everyone in the building, players and staff alike to survive if not thrive. Penn State’s floor is pretty high among major college football programs (though it might be stretched a bit next season). Campbell has a chance to raise its ceiling. And unlike ace pitchers, he’ll have his hand on the ball every day of the year.