This story was originally published on November 12, 2017 during the University of Tennessee’s last coaching search. It has been updated to reflect the current situation.
Matt Campbell has won pretty much everywhere he has been as both a player and coach, but it hasn’t been easy.
Campbell’s father was a football coach, but moved to the rival school to allow his son a dad-free coaching experience through high school. The move paid off, as the younger Campbell won three conference titles as a defensive end/tight end during his high school years in Massillon, Ohio.
After an initial stop in Pittsburgh to play for the Panthers in 1998, he transferred to the University of Mount Union, a Division III Liberal Arts college in Alliance, Ohio that boasts one of lower division football’s most glaring rates of success. Campbell helped lead the team to three National Championships during his time as a Purple Raider.
But then the honeymoon ended. The high school success and division III championships just weren’t enough when he looked to continue his football career and after college, he struggled to find a job in coaching. He sent his resume everywhere to no avail and found himself working at a cement factory back in his hometown.
However, a stroke of fortune allowed him a Graduate Assistant (GA) position at Bowling Green (BG) and he made the most of it. During his stint as GA at BG, he was tasked with entertaining visiting VIPs on occasion. One such guest was Scott Pioli, Director of Football Operations for the New England Patriots. Campbell, at the age of 23, impressed Poili enough to get an interview offer to be a part of the most illustrious staff in the last twenty years (if not ever). He declined.
After joining the staff of his alma mater in the years to come, he would revisit Bowling Green a few years later as offensive line coach and running game coordinator. According to a 2015 AP article, Urban Meyer tried to hire Campbell without even meeting him. “Someone recommended him to me and I started asking my friends who were high school coaches in the state and to a man they loved the guy,” said Meyer. “Then I started doing my homework on his football acumen and it all came back plusses.” Though he struggled to break in to the profession initially, Campbell controlled his coaching future by his late 20s.
He got his big break when he found his way onto the Toledo staff in 2009. Less than two full years later, he took over as head coach and four years after that, his record stood at 35-15.
During three of his four full seasons at Toledo, Campbell won nine games and during his final year, he finished with a record of 9-2, the exact tally that Nick Saban notched during his year at the same university in 1990. He walked by a framed picture of Saban each day as he walked the team’s facilities.
His greatest accomplishment to date is his complete resurrection of a perennial underdog in Iowa State. This is what makes him the coaching candidate with perhaps the highest ceiling, and one that every school with a vacancy should entertain.
It took a few months to change the culture in Ames, but by the tail of his first year at Iowa State, the team was starting to buy in. Since 2013, Iowa State went 11-37 (6-30 in the Big 12) before Campbell took over and the Cyclones went 3-9 during Campbell’s first year. But at the end of Campbell’s first campaign, the Cyclones averaged the fourth most yards per game on offense in school history (421.6/game). The Cyclones had three running backs with over 500 yards and a 1,000-yard receiver in what was widely described as a balanced offensive attack. In 2017, Iowa State was one of two squads nationally that had five players with over 30 receptions. The Cyclones did not lose a fumble on the season, as well, a feat that had never been achieved prior.
Campbell finished both the 2017 and 2018 seasons with an 8-5 record with the help of running back David Montgomery and wide receiver Allen Lazard. Each of these players were drafted and now play in the NFC North, with the former joining the Chicago Bears and the latter joining the Green Bay Packers. The Cyclones earned wins over two top five teams (Oklahoma and TCU) with a walk-on quarterback and a quarterback playing linebacker (and playing very well). Iowa State held a record of 1-54-2 against top five teams before the 2017 season.
Iowa State took a step back in 2019, finishing with a 7-6 record. They did, however, upset Texas that season. Overall, Campbell has 11 wins over top 25 opponents in his five years in Ames (four in 17, two in 18 and 19 and three in 2020). They concluded the most recent season with a Fiesta bowl win over Oregon and stood at ninth in the final AP and coaches poll rankings.
He’s a coach who played defense, coaches offense and understands the intricacies of each side of the ball. But if you ask those who know him, it’s his respect for both peers and players, along with his love of the process, that has made him one of the most sought-after coaches in the country. Campbell’s own “code of conduct” follows him to every stop he makes, urging everyone in eyeshot to be polite. It’s a simple concept, but one that he demands of his players and coaches. He also has a few old-school policies in place (including a no-bar policy during the season).
A previous concern with Campbell was that he would take over as the next coach at Ohio State (his home state school), when Urban Meyer decided to hang up his whistle (temporarily) but that gig went to Ryan Day. The pesky 9.3 million buyout that any school that hired Campbell would have owed Iowa State was another issue in 2017. At the time, Matt Campbell did not have an agent and earned just over $2 million as a base salary, which made him the 53th-highest paid coach in the country. Here is the incentive-laden contract he and his team came up with at the time.
These days, Campbell is under contract until the 2025 season and makes an average of $3.5 million per year. His current buyout is $6 million. He earns an additional $250,000 if Iowa State wins at least eight regular-season contests and half a million more for at least nine regular-season victories.
According to a Des Moines Register report, Campbell took a 10% paycut in 2020 to help offset potential cuts that his staff would incur. That report states that “Last year, Iowa State spent about $5 million on football assistants.” In comparison, UT coaches were scheduled to make around 6 million in 2020.
There are three parts to the manifesto that Campbell wrote at a table with his wife before he got his first full time gig as a head coach: “Recruit, retain, develop.”
Having recently been unsuccessfully courted by both the Detroit Lions and the New York Jets to take on their head coaching vacancies, it is unlikely that Campbell, who values loyalty and faithfulness, would leave Iowa State this late in the recruiting cycle to head to Rocky Top. The Vols could do much worse though, and if there’s a possibility, here’s to hoping they make the call.
Hear from Campbell himself after his team’s second top-five win of the season below.
Story edited by Anna Reddick
