Bill O’Brien doesn’t need to know Matt Campbell well to believe Penn State made the right call.
Speaking to PennLive on Friday, O’Brien said he thinks the Nittany Lions landed “the right guy” when they hired Campbell as their next head coach.
“I think that’s an unbelievable hire for Penn State,” O’Brien told PennLive. “... He’s going to do a great job there.”
Campbell admitted during his introductory press conference last December in the Beaver Stadium media room that he didn’t know O’Brien personally when he took the job. Still, Campbell took time to acknowledge O’Brien in his opening remarks, saluting him and “what he stood for” during a difficult period at Penn State. Campbell also said he has the “utmost respect” for him.
O’Brien returned that respect.
He said he and Campbell never had a personal relationship, though he remembered Campbell stopping by practice “every once in a while” during his Iowa State days. That was the extent of their connection before O’Brien spoke with him this summer, the same way he had spoken with James Franklin after Franklin followed him.
O’Brien didn’t go into detail about that conversation, but he came away with a strong impression of Campbell.
“He’s awesome,” O’Brien said, while also stressing that Penn State is a “very unique place.”
“That head coaching position is very, very important in that state,” O’Brien said, “and in college football.”
O’Brien knows the weight of that job firsthand.
He was hired in January 2012 as Joe Paterno’s full-time successor, stepping into a program trying to steady itself after the Jerry Sandusky sex abuse scandal. With NCAA sanctions hanging over the program, O’Brien worked to keep players from leaving and helped stabilize the roster. His first team went 8-4 in 2012, and he was named college football’s coach of the year.
That 2012 squad, now honored on the Beaver Stadium facade alongside title-winning teams, remains a symbol of the program’s survival during that stretch. O’Brien followed it with a 7-5 season in 2013 before leaving for the NFL and the Houston Texans.
His pro career included a 52-48 record in seven seasons with Houston, a two-year run as Alabama’s offensive coordinator in 2021 and 2022, and a return to the Patriots in 2023. He is now in Year 3 at Boston College.
Penn State’s new coach also has a small Boston College connection through his staff. Campbell hired former Boston College running backs coach Savon Huggins for the same role with the Nittany Lions in January.
Asked whether O’Brien offered any advice about coaching at Penn State, Huggins said, “He told me it’s a special place. Coach O’B was great to me and for me. He reiterated that this is a very, very special place.
“It was an unbelievable opportunity he had here with the fan base, and the togetherness that happened when that time occurred. He’s like, ‘You’re going to love coaching there,’ and that it’s an unbelievable opportunity.”
Now Campbell gets his own chance to build on what Paterno, O’Brien and Franklin did before him. And from O’Brien’s view, Penn State made the right hire.
“They hired the right guy,” O’Brien told PennLive. “There’s no doubt about that.”
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