Just a few days ago, Pat Kraft was public enemy No. 1. Now, Penn State’s athletic director can breathe a sigh of relief — and so can Nittany Lion fans everywhere.

Penn State’s frustrating, antsy and, at times, embarrassing coaching search has been salvaged. Iowa State’s Matt Campbell, one of the most well-respected coaches in the industry, will be James Franklin’s successor and the Nittany Lions’ new leader.

No, there won’t be any Kalani Sitake-esque tomfoolery. Campbell, the three-time Big 12 coach of the year, has agreed to terms with Penn State and is a Board of Trustees approval meeting away from official.

Penn State’s 54-day search, one that started quietly confident and quickly devolved into a chaotic and public nightmare, is finally over.

Campbell would have been a worthy, understandable hire had Penn State made it in mid-October. But given the week of embarrassment Kraft and Penn State’s fan base just endured, hiring Campbell now is an undeniable victory.

Of course, no one will forget the process of Penn State’s coaching search. No one will forget the mess Kraft and Co. made on their way to landing Campbell. Winning cures all. But that will hang over Kraft’s tenure in Happy Valley.

Penn State’s search started off sensibly. Kraft moved on from Franklin after inexcusable losses to UCLA and Northwestern effectively ended the Nittany Lions’ season. National title hopes went up in smoke, and so did Franklin’s remaining goodwill with the fan base. Kraft reacted accordingly — and in doing so, gave himself plenty of time to vet and interview candidates.

But Kraft squandered that advantage. As the days and weeks went by, a host of candidates — Indiana’s Curt Cignetti, Nebraska’s Matt Rhule, Texas A&M’s Mike Elko, and more — leveraged Penn State’s interest and signed contract extensions, and LSU, Florida, Auburn and other programs fired and hired coaches.

By Monday, Penn State was the last power conference opening remaining. Sitake, BYU’s beloved coach, was the top target, and there was “basically” a deal in place. That handshake agreement signaled to James Madison coach Bob Chesney that he wouldn’t get the Penn State job, so he took the UCLA gig. But thanks to the power of the LDS church and a cookie magnate, Sitake reversed course on his agreement with Kraft and decided on Tuesday to stay in Provo.

Meanwhile, current players and lettermen wanted interim coach Terry Smith to be promoted. Junior linebacker Tony Rojas made that clear on social media, all but threatening a roster revolt if Smith wasn’t hired. Even some fans who were against hiring Smith weeks ago were resigned to the fact that he might be the only person who actually wanted the job. Well, other than fired New York Giants coach Brian Daboll, who would have been an awful fit.

That’s when the pressure really started to mount. Kraft whiffed on his big swings (Elko, Marcus Freeman, Kalen DeBoer). He lost his backup plan (Chesney). He missed on his top target (Sitake), and he was seemingly left with scraps.

This opening became a punchline. And the perception was that Penn State, one of the top programs in college football, was bested by the CEO of Crumbl Cookies. Fans were calling for Kraft to be fired. It was an ugly, maddening state of affairs.

The panic meter was off the charts. The bleeding had to stop. The jokes were rolling in, and Penn State was the butt of them.

Credit to Kraft, though, as well as university president Neeli Bendapudi and the administrators who stepped in to help. On Tuesday and Wednesday, the Nittany Lions may have been a laughingstock nationally. But Kraft stayed the course, navigated a circuitous path of his own making and arrived at Campbell.

Many were relieved just to have a coach. But Penn State fans should be excited by Campbell, especially given the circumstances under which he was hired.

Campbell has perennially overachieved and has a sterling reputation in the coaching community for the work he’s done at Iowa State. In 10 seasons, Campbell went 72-55 with the Cyclones. His .554 winning percentage is the highest of any Iowa State coach since 1919. He made two Big 12 title game appearances and led the Cyclones to their only 11-win season in 2024. He had eight winning seasons in a decade at the helm; the Cyclones had eight winning seasons in the 38 years prior to his arrival.

It’s hard to win in Ames, and Campbell did it consistently after doing the same at Toledo.

That might not sound all that appealing. To some, that might sound like Franklin, who was good but not great during his time at Penn State. Franklin had a 15-28 record against top 25 teams at Penn State. Campbell had a 16-27 record against top 25 teams at Iowa State.

But to make that comparison to Franklin and latch onto it would be ignoring context. Campbell maximized his potential at Iowa State, developing NFL talent (Brock Purdy, Breece Hall, David Montgomery, to name a few) and doing more with less at a program that ranked near the bottom in assistant salary pool and NIL funding in the Big 12. And now, he’ll have all the resources in the world to succeed at Penn State after drawing interest elsewhere for years.

Campbell declined interviews with the New York Jets twice. In 2022, he was a finalist for the USC gig. In 2021, he was reportedly offered an eight-year, $68.5 million deal by the Detroit Lions and stayed in Ames. Lions coach Dan Campbell later joked at his introductory press conference: “You can’t go wrong with a Campbell.”

Ultimately, we’ll see if Matt Campbell wins at Penn State. Smith is sticking around, so that should help. We’ll see which players stay, which players are brought in and how Campbell recruits. We’ll see how he navigates not being the program’s first, second or third choice and how he handles a fan base on edge.

But on Friday, Kraft and Penn State certainly couldn’t go wrong with their Campbell.

That’s especially true after a messy and memorable search.

Copyright ©2025— Trib Total Media, LLC (TribLIVE.com)