Penn State’s 2026 football team doesn’t just look different. It feels different.
A year ago, the Nittany Lions were opening against Nevada with national-title expectations hanging over them. Now, after a season that cratered from a preseason No. 2 ranking to a 7-6 finish and ended with James Franklin being fired after six games, Penn State is starting over with Matt Campbell in charge.
Campbell is in his first season as head coach, and the mood around the program matches the reset. The Nittany Lions still have a path to the College Football Playoff thanks to a relatively easy schedule, but a 9-3 type of season sounds more like the realistic range than anything grander.
That new reality starts with the roster. Campbell rebuilt it through the transfer portal and added 55 new players, leaving very little overlap between last year’s starters and the group projected to open this season. Multiple key players from the 2025 team are gone to the NFL, and the depth chart has been reshaped from top to bottom.
“Everybody's in an earn it position,” Campbell said at Penn State’s local media day. “Everybody's either in a new team, got a new place, got new coaches, and everybody's pouring in with kind of the same starting line as me.
You got to go prove it. You got to go earn it.
And to be honest with you, on good teams, on great teams that I've been a part of is championship football, you got to earn your job every day.”
The biggest new face on offense is quarterback Rocco Becht, who takes over after Drew Allar started the past 2½ seasons. Becht is in his final year of college football and arrives with familiarity, having played for Campbell and Penn State offensive coordinator Taylor Mouser at Iowa State.
He’s the headliner in a group of 24 former Cyclones who followed Campbell to Happy Valley. The Iowa State pipeline runs deep on defense, too, with former Cyclones safeties Marcus Neal Jr. and Jeremiah Cooper projected as starters, along with linebacker Kooper Ebel and defensive end Ikenna Ezeogu.
Penn State’s projected lineup also includes some returners in new roles. Right guard Cooper Cousins and left tackle Malachi Goodman are expected to start, while receiver Koby Howard looks set for a bigger offensive role after showing flashes with seven catches as a freshman. Howard has also switched to No. 6, and every other transfer will be wearing a new jersey number as well.
That’s part of why this roster will take some getting used to for Penn State fans. There are so many new faces and so many new numbers that the 2026 team will require a fresh mental reset along with the physical one.
The changes aren’t limited to personnel. Campbell also brought a different defensive setup with him. His longtime defensive coordinator at Iowa State and Toledo, Jon Heacock, retired this offseason rather than making the move to Happy Valley, and Heacock’s 3-3-5 system was a major part of Campbell’s background.
Jim Knowles, who held the defensive coordinator job at Penn State in 2025, left for Tennessee. Campbell replaced him with former Nittany Lion cornerback and USC defensive coordinator D’Anton Lynn.
Now the defense is moving toward a four-man front as its base look. During practice, the first-team unit is working out of a 4-2-5 scheme rather than a three-man front, and the interior line is noticeably bigger, with four transfers weighing 319 pounds or more.
Campbell is also putting his own stamp on the day-to-day routine. The biggest shift is the practice schedule: instead of Franklin’s afternoon sessions, Penn State is practicing in the morning. Campbell started morning practices in 2020 at Iowa State and believes they help players begin the day the right way.
The atmosphere in the Lasch Building has changed, too. Franklin’s core values of a positive attitude, work ethic, competing and sacrifice are gone, along with the familiar “1-0.” references. In their place are a pyramid of values and a “Nittany Lion Code of Conduct” on the walls.
Players have also noticed Campbell’s emphasis on community service. The team visited a western Pennsylvania kids camp before training camp, and Penn State will hold Victory Day on Aug. 28, a tradition Campbell brought from Iowa State that gives children with disabilities and their families a day at the team facilities.
For Campbell, all of it ties back to the same idea: everyone in the building is navigating change together.
“In our football building, all of us are going through … a common thread, and it's change,” Campbell said. “Until you go through change and really know who we are and what we are, you may have been one thing at Ohio State or one thing at Iowa State or even one thing here. But we're all going through the same common denominator, and that common denominator we're going through is change.”
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