By Chris Buchignani | April 22, 2026
Long before the possibility of entering Beaver Stadium as leader of the Nittany Lions was anything more than a wistful daydream for Matt Campbell, the man who will do just that for the very first time this Saturday was a sophomore transfer from Pitt looking for a second chance. At Division III Mount Union College, the future Penn State head coach found direction and purpose under the tutelage of one of football’s greatest winners.
Larry Kehres retired from Mount Union in 2012 with the highest winning percentage and the most national titles, conference titles, and unbeaten regular seasons of any coach in college football history. Campbell helped Kehres win championships as a player (along with college roommate Nick Sirianni), and he later returned to serve as offensive coordinator for even more title winners. Last week, I spoke with Coach Kehres about the man he deemed “the perfect guy for the Penn State job.”
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I cannot say enough about how gracious and thoughtful Coach Kehres was throughout our discussion. I do hope he visits for a big-game weekend in Happy Valley – anyone who loves and has given as much to the game as he has deserves to experience college football here at least once. As we gear up for Blue-White Weekend, here are a few abridged quotes and observations from the interview that have me excited for what comes next at Penn State…
“I’ve always been an admirer of how tough the Penn State football team was. And by that, I mean how fundamentally sound Coach Paterno’s teams were blocking and tackling. I imagine if you were going to play them, you knew you were in for a hard, tough day. I think Matt feels he has a chance at Penn State to follow the course that he believes in and the principles that he believes in and accomplish great things. I think Matt feels that he can create the same type of culture.”
For any program, but especially those fortunate enough to claim blueblood status, the distinctive identity that distinguishes your college’s brand of football from the rest is foundational. At Penn State, our special recipe for “Success with Honor” blends commitment to physical toughness and making the college football experience transformational beyond the gridiron. A coach who lacks belief in this total package will always be a built-in disadvantage, senselessly swimming against the current. Campbell, seemingly, chose Penn State largely because the institutional values match his own, and it hasn’t taken long for that natural symmetry to become evident.
“I think Matt’s going to do a great job of bringing the entire Penn State community together. He’s got the football team and how they look in spring practice to deal with, but at the same time, he’s going to recreate the great community of Penn State football alumni, fans, and friends. Now, the Mount Union guys, current coaches, went over and watched practice a weekend ago, and they were pretty impressed at all the alums that Matt had there.”
By now, most fans have seen the photos and videos of Penn State football players from throughout the program’s storied past being welcomed back to Happy Valley. When I interviewed former Nittany Lions DB Stephon Morris about his teammate D’Anton Lynn, now State’s defensive coordinator, he went out of his way to praise the genuine outreach from Campbell and his staff to past players. On the Obligatory Pregame Show we just filmed for Blue-White Week, my co-host Landon Tengwall gushed about the experience of meeting the staff and addressing the team alongside nearly 50 other players from 2010 to present. These examples echo sentiments I’ve encountered again and again since Campbell’s arrival. Few programs in America enjoy the depth of history, talent, or loyalty present among Penn State’s varsity Lettermen; it’s to Matt Campbell’s credit that he recognizes this as an asset to be leveraged.
“When Matt came back to help me coach, he brought with him the ideas that he had learned at Bowling Green. He’d been a member of Urban Meyer’s staff, and I felt like I needed refreshed a little bit. So we kind of combined what he had learned and what Mount Union always did. He was with a group of young guys, and they really helped me in the latter part of my career to make sure that my team – I used the word ‘tough’ – that we stayed tough enough. I might have been getting a little soft and Matt helped me uh kind of recover and get freshened up a little bit to move forward for the last eight or 10 years (of my career).”
I appreciate the reminder that, after playing for one of the all-time greats, Campbell began his coaching journey by working with another of the sport’s most successful coaches (think what you will about Urban, his track record speaks for itself). That he was then able to assist his former mentor by assimilating those lessons into Mount Union’s established winning formula hints at a number of desirable qualities. Hearing a head coach as accomplished as Larry Kehres say that Matt Campbell helped refresh and refocus him for another championship run should get every Penn State fan excited about what this student-turned-master has in store for Happy Valley.
“He brought an attention to detail that was better than I was accustomed to. He really made me a better coach, and he still has that edge. He’s precise in meetings. There’s not wasted time. He pays attention to every position and can make comments about skills that need improved so assistant coaches can work on those skills. I think my attention to the insistence on playing the best players, even if we have to change the nature of what we like to do… I considered myself pretty good at evaluating players and using the strengths that they had, and so perhaps I helped him with that.”
When a guy who has won at the highest clip and accumulated the most hardware speaks, I listen. I don’t care at what level he did it. Winners win, and it takes one to know one. Kehres suggesting that Matt Campbell helped make him a better coach should command out attention. Perhaps even more encouraging are his words about the lessons Matt learned from him. In general, the capacity to adapt and improve is vital in a hyper-competitive landscape, but I am specifically comforted by the idea that playing the best players, irrespective of outside noise, has become part of Campbell’s coaching DNA. It became clear that too much top talent spent far too long riding the bench last season, and if Penn State wants to compete in the Big Ten, then the best players must play, regardless of NIL commitments, parental politics, or anything else unrelated to ability and attitude.
For anxious Penn State fans hoping Matt Campbell can reproduce even a fraction of his revered mentor’s coaching success with the Nittany Lions, listening to Larry Kehres himself make the case for his former player and assistant should fill us with hope.
Among his many media roles covering the Nittany Lions, Chris Buchignani is cohost of The Obligatory PSU Pregame Show. Next Thursday, he will present on Penn State Football History from 1993 to Present at Pine Grove Hall.
