CBS analyst Charles Davis isn’t backing away from his July read on Penn State’s coaching hire, even with the season now off to a rough start.
At Big Ten Media Days, Davis said Penn State hired Matt Campbell right out of “central casting.” Two months later, with Penn State still winless in Big Ten play, he’s holding to that view.
"[Penn State] getting Matt Campbell is a big deal," Davis said in an interview Tuesday. "I am not about to be Mr.
Revisionist History. I still feel that way.
I still feel like it's a big-time hire for Penn State, despite the early struggles. I could get all esoteric and say, coach [Joe] Paterno was 3-3 right out of the gate.
But that was 1966. No one cares.
All anyone cares about is this."
Davis will be on the call Saturday for Penn State-Michigan on CBS Sports, a game that looks very different from what anyone expected when the schedule was made. The teams enter with a combined 0-5 record in Big Ten play and will meet for the first time without either side having a conference win. Penn State’s Campbell and Michigan coach Kyle Whittingham are both dealing with difficult starts in their first season navigating a new conference.
That’s why Davis leaned into the unknown when asked about what’s been going wrong in State College.
"One of the great mysteries of the world," Davis said. "How did they put the Pyramids together What is going on with Penn State? I totally get it."
For Davis, the first thing that jumps off the film is Penn State’s inability to establish the run - and the problems that creates everywhere else.
He said the early signs were there when the defense opened the year strongly, but the warning light was already flashing on offense. The run game never took hold, and what looked like a temporary issue has become a full-blown one. Davis pointed to the offensive line and defensive front as the biggest trouble spots, with Penn State unable to run the ball and opponents able to run on Penn State.
He also noted that numbers can tell one story while the tape tells another. Penn State’s pass defense numbers may look strong, but he cited USC as proof that opponents have seen something different and acted on it. Davis said USC looked at the run stats and the film, decided it could still win through the air, and was proven right.
Davis said Northwestern also exposed Penn State in a different way, running what he described as essentially the Wing-T and forcing the Nittany Lions into more tackling, more missed tackles, and more yardage.
"I think they felt good about pass defense, and then USC said, 'Well, we think our pass offense is better than your pass defense, and we're going to do it anyway.' And they did.
So now you're into a confidence thing: Which way do we go? They've got to really work on making sure these kids keep confidence.
But I think [after the season], there's going to be a valiant effort in all those places to try and upgrade the talent across the board."
The offense, though, remains the central question. Penn State offensive coordinator Taylor Mouser put it plainly: "We're a run game without an identity," and Davis said he’s not sure the group has one yet.
He said Penn State now has to decide whether it believes the running game can be fixed this season, and if so, what that version looks like. That means settling on a style up front and figuring out how to complement it - whether through receivers as extra runners, more power sets, or a perimeter-based approach.
"Maybe they look up and go [about the run game], 'Guys, we don't have time this year. It's not going to happen that way.
We may have to do it this way and live with it and come back and retool in the spring.'" Davis said.
However Penn State attacks Michigan, Davis expects Saturday to provide some answers. He called Michigan’s defense excellent and said the matchup should reveal more about what Penn State is trying to be.
As for how both teams ended up here, Davis pointed to a pair of turning points. Penn State’s comeback win over Wisconsin, he said, jolted the Nittany Lions and knocked them off balance. For Michigan, he didn’t cite Western Michigan so much as the Iowa loss, when the team failed to get the first down late before Iowa drove 91 yards for a touchdown.
That’s why, in Davis’ view, these two teams are meeting in an unexpected place.
"I don't want to use the word desperation, because desperation often seems out of control. But I think both these teams will be tuned to the highest edge in this game.
Both of them are realizing, hold it a minute, Penn State-Michigan, and neither one of us is ranked? This doesn't even feel right.
That's not normal."
Still, he expects the game itself to look and feel like Penn State-Michigan should. Davis said both teams are likely to play with heavy emotion, high effort and plenty of edge after hearing plenty about disappointment and failure.
"But it's still Penn State-Michigan. I think we're going to see some really hard play on Saturday.
I think every snap you're going to see people playing with a lot of effort. We might have a few echoes-of-the-whistle type plays because these two teams will be pretty amped up.
Both of them are sick of losing. Both of them are sick of hearing how this has been a disappointment and a failure."
And even with the rough start, Davis still believes the hires at both programs will eventually make sense.
"You have two coaches that I believe were hired out of central casting, and I still do, but I never would have thought we'd be in the spot that we're in right now. But I do believe we're going to look back for both of them one day and go, 'Yep, that's why they were hired.
These guys know what they're doing.' One of them won't have to answer those questions come Saturday, and one of them will have to continue to answer them for a little while."
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Penn States coaching change in October 2025 set off a stretch of uncertainty that still shapes how the program is being judged today. James Franklin was dismissed after a third straight Big Ten loss, and what followed was a 54-day search that eventually landed on Matt Campbell. The move gave the Nittany Lions a fresh start on the sideline, but it also came with the kind of scrutiny that never really disappears once a high-profile job opens up.
The process drew plenty of attention along the way, including interest in Bob Chesney and Kalani Sitake, and it has only sharpened the conversation around athletic director Pat Krafts decisions. Penn State opened the next season 3-0, but the losses that followed knocked the team out of College Football Playoff contention and left the program dealing with the bigger question of whether the right call was made when the search finally ended. [Read more 🡒]
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Penn State Suddenly Has A Defensive Problem It Cant Ignore
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Neal is not the only former Cyclone who has had trouble settling in. Linebackers Kooper Ebel and Jeremiah Cooper have also underperformed, with tackling and coverage issues becoming part of the conversation. For a defense that wants to stay dependable deep into conference play, the question now is whether Penn State needs to lean less on some of those Iowa State transfers and give younger options a bigger look. [Read more 🡒]