Penn State interim head coach Terry Smith leaves the field following a win against Nebraska during an NCAA college football game, Saturday, Nov. 22, 2025, in State College, Pa. (AP Photo/Barry Reeger)

STATE COLLEGE — It took Penn State athletic director Pat Kraft 54 days to find a new football coach. When the search finally ended, Kraft found one of the promising up-and-comers of the college football world in Iowa State’s Matt Campbell.

“There will probably be a Netflix documentary at some point,” Kraft joked at Monday’s press conference while introducing Campbell.

There was still good news for Penn State fans that wanted interim coach Terry Smith to be the next man. Only minutes after it was announced that the deal was done for Campbell to be the 17th head coach at Penn State, it was also reported that Smith was being retained and will serve on Campbell’s staff.

Campbell and Smith got to know each other while Campbell was an assistant coach at Toledo, serving in that role from 2009-11 before becoming the Rockets’ head coach in 2012. At the time, Smith was the coach at Gateway High School in Monroeville.

“Terry was always such an inspiring human to be around,” Campbell said. “I loved going to watch him interact with his players. We loved to go recruit his players because you knew if you got a great player from Terry, you know what they stood for and it was bigger than just football.

“As soon as we got into discussions with this job, it was one of the first questions I asked. Boy, I would really like to keep Terry; what do you think? It was a resounding yes.”

Kraft agreed with seemingly everyone else that believed Smith needed to be a part of the program moving forward in some capacity.

“The Terry decision was an absolute no-brainer, easy,” Kraft said. “That’s a testament to Terry. I think I’ve got the best football coach in the country, and I’ve got a partner for him who is Penn State.”

As far as the rest of the staff goes, Campbell declined to elaborate on if anyone else on the Penn State or Iowa State coaches may join him. There have been reports from multiple outlets that Cyclones defensive coordinator Jon Heacock will be joining Campbell with the Nittany Lions.

“Now, are there some people I know I want to bring from Iowa State? There certainly are, and we’ll do all those things at the right time,” Campbell said.

However, he did say Derek Hoodjer, who was the associate athletic director for football personnel for the Cyclones, has joined him in State College. Hoodjer is expected to take on a similar role at Penn State.

The role is a de facto general manager for the Lions, a job that is becoming more prevalent by the year in college football.

“We’re getting closer and closer to the NFL,” Kraft said. “We’re not there yet. We’re recruiting young men, and that’s why this hire is so important.

Campbell acknowledged that Iowa State had a general manager more as a necessity because they didn’t have the resources that the blue-blood programs possess.

“We almost had to be better evaluators in high school, better evaluators in the transfer portal, because it was the only shot we could get,” Campbell said.

“We had to do it all ourselves, and it’s probably one of the great advantages we had. We didn’t have an athletic director working with us. We had to build all those things from scratch.”

Campbell said Hoodjer created the contracts at Iowa State.

“The reality is we’re really lucky,” Campbell said. “Derek is one of the absolute bright minds in all of football, and is already here with us and started that. And now Derek’s role will be exactly what Pat said. We have to build out the greatest teams underneath Derek that we possibly can.”

Next up is meeting with the team over the next few days while the Lions get bowl preparations under way against Clemson in the Pinstripe Bowl.

Campbell is unsure of what his role will be for the bowl game while Smith still runs the team, but is planning on not being a distraction over the next few weeks.

To watch these guys climb back, it’s been super impressive,” Campbell said. My respect for Terry and the seniors on this football team, man. Going to win four in a row (to end the season), that’s huge.”