CHICAGO – Matt Campbell and Kirk Ferentz are both Big Ten football coaches.
That’s still a weird sentence for many people in the state of Iowa to accept, but Campbell exchanged Iowa State cardinal and gold for Penn State blue and white in the offseason.
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The two men are not friends, but the mutual respect was very clear when Ferentz was asked multiple times about his relationship with Campbell during Iowa’s session at Big Ten Media Days on July 28.
Declaring Campbell as the most successful head coach in Iowa State history is probably the accurate description. The Cyclones were floundering for most of the 21st century until his 2016 arrival, but Campbell quickly turned things around and left with a pair of Big 12 Championship Game appearances and the program’s first-ever 10-win campaign in 2024.
Iowa State was in even worse shape when Ferentz began his nine-year stint as Iowa’s offensive line coach in the 1980s. The Cyclones opened the decade with three straight victories over the Hawkeyes, but Iowa would get the last laugh and win 15 straight from 1983-1997.
Though Campbell lost his first five games against the archrival Hawkeyes, he finished his Iowa State coaching career winning three of the last four. Not surprisingly, Ferentz didn’t take long to realize Campbell’s coaching prowess.
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“I’ve been mad at him for decades because I really had nothing to hate him about or dislike him about,” Ferentz said. “I just respect him as a coach and respect him as a person. They [Penn State] went out and got a guy who can, in my opinion, coach with anybody in the country.”
Twenty-four of Campbell’s Iowa State players followed him to Penn State, including star quarterback Rocco Becht and tight end Benjamin Brahmer, but how will the Nittany Lions fare in year one of the new regime?
Penn State was picked to finish sixth in the league in the preseason poll (Iowa was picked eighth), but a favorable schedule could help the Nittany Lions vault back to Big Ten relevance.
Penn State avoided Ohio State, Oregon, and Indiana, and its two toughest games could be roadtrips to Michigan and Washington or maybe a home game against USC. Major sportsbooks like FanDuel and DraftKings list the Lions’ win total at 8.5 or 9.5, so it seems like the easier schedule is providing optimism nationally.
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Iowa won’t get to play against what some call “Iowa State East” (because of Campbell bringing most of his Iowa State roster with him to Penn State) until 2028 in State College. A meeting in 2026 would’ve been one of the most interesting games on the Big Ten calendar, but the schedule makers couldn’t have predicted Campbell’s departure.
Ferentz won’t be cheering for Campbell to have success in his new home as a conference rival, but he reassured Nittany Lions fans by saying their coach will do just fine in the Big Ten.
“I’ve got a deep appreciation for what that program is and what it’s capable of doing, and to me, it’s going to be a really great marriage for both parties,” Ferentz said. “And I wish them luck, but obviously not too much because we probably have to compete against them at some point.”
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HawkeyeRoundtable publisher Brad Schultz has covered the Iowa Hawkeyes since 2023. To send him story ideas, scoops, or criticize his writing, reach him at bradschultz@roundtable.io
