Matt Campbell spent eight months building Penn State into the version he wanted.
He survived the January roster scramble, spent the winter setting the tone, worked through spring with a teaching-first approach and arrived at training camp with a group he described as experienced, tough and bought-in. But with Marshall looming on Sept. 5 at Beaver Stadium, he still doesn’t know exactly what he’s got.
“I think we’re going to keep learning about this football team, I hate to tell you, through the first part of the season,” Campbell said Thursday after practice.
That uncertainty is baked into what Penn State has become this offseason. The Nittany Lions went through their biggest roster overhaul since 2012, only this time the turnover came in a very different college football world.
Campbell brought in 55 players who were not on the team last season, including 40 from 17 other schools. Twenty-four of those came from Iowa State.
The transfer pipeline stretched across the Big 12, Big Ten, SEC, ACC and Division III. Some players are already on their third school.
Receiver Chase Sowell is at his fourth. Defensive lineman Siale Taupaki, who transferred from UCLA, is in his eighth season of college football.
That kind of churn explains why Campbell is still trying to define the team’s identity. He knows the vision.
Cooper Cousins put it plainly for the offense as “dominant, nasty and accountable.” Campbell just hasn’t seen that fully take shape yet in practice.
“What’s your greatest fear? It’s the fear of the unknown,” Campbell said. “We’re all going through each phase of this uniquely for the first time.”
Campbell has lived through seasons like this before. He pointed to Iowa State’s 2021 and ’22 campaigns, when the Cyclones slipped to 11-14 after winning the Fiesta Bowl in 2020. What stood out to him from that stretch was how many players stayed with him through the rough patch.
A few of those familiar faces are now at Penn State too: quarterback Rocco Becht, tight ends Ben Brahmer and Gabe Burkle and linebackers Caleb Bacon and Cooper Ebel. Campbell has drawn a line between that group and the Penn State players who came back after the program’s 7-6 collapse in 2025.
“I think the reality of going through a season where you don't reach your full potential is, why did some of those things occur from their viewpoint?” Campbell said in a preseason interview.
“ And then taking that understanding and also paralleling it with, these are some of the things that we've been through. Did you feel that?
Did you see that? Here's what we used to get ourselves out of that.
And having the opportunity to have authentic conversation, I think those things have helped us immensely.”
There have been hurdles even before the games begin. Spring practice was slowed by a roster hit with more than 20 players limited or out for different reasons. Offensive coordinator Taylor Mouser said, “I think we’ve come a long way from spring ball, which was hardly football in my opinion for what the standards are, and they've done a good job [in training camp].”
Campbell’s first Penn State season also carries some off-field weight. The school has already released season-ticket prices for 2027, the year the renovated Beaver Stadium opens, and some fans could see their costs triple if they keep the same seats. Penn State needs this year to build momentum for that sales push.
On paper, though, the roster is one of the most difficult in the Power 4 to read. It has the most cumulative starts of any Big Ten team, but it also includes a lot of players who have not yet proven themselves in the conference. That’s why outside analysts have called Penn State’s season “seemingly impossible” to predict.
Campbell has seen enough in camp to spot the usual categories: standouts, rising players and some areas that still need work. The pieces have fit together reasonably well. Now comes the harder part - tightening everything before the lights come on.
“We can predict the depth chart pretty effectively. But we can’t predict how that lineup will play in September,” the reality goes. Campbell is there too.
“All this stuff is great, but it’s just preparing you for the lights,” Campbell said. “It’s preparing you for the stadium, it’s preparing you to play a different opponent, and we’re going to have to work through all those things together, too.
“... Every single day we’re learning a little bit more about ourselves: who can do it, who can do it to the standard that we want to play the game of football with and play to the standards that we’ve set around this program of what it takes to play championship football here.”
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The biggest conversation point is the new premium seating built into the renovation, which is already drawing plenty of attention from fans trying to figure out what the upgraded game-day experience will mean for their wallets. Even with advance notice and a detailed breakdown from Penn State, the pricing changes have made the renovation feel very real, and the mixed response shows how quickly a stadium overhaul can turn into a debate about access, value and what longtime supporters are being asked to pay for the next era at Beaver Stadium. [Read more 🡒]