What should Matt Campbell’s first moves be?

C

Creamery

Active member
I say #1 is find a way to keep Terry Smith - make him Associate HC or whatever title he wants plus a hefty raise. Keep Terry and you may keep the locker room.

#2 is to recruit your own guys. Gotta retain as much of the young talent as possible

#3 - start planning to spend all that NIL money Kraft talked about in the interview on the transfer portal. With no 2026 recruiting class and many probable transfers we’re going to need a lot of new guys.

#4 what to do with AK and JK? I’d keep Knowles and remove Andy. PSU needs a new Offensive identity.
 
He needs to assemble his staff since he will accountable, I doubt he keeps any of them unless he is really sold on them. Then bring over preferably junior and senior ISU players, since he has said our 4-5 star kids only turn out that way after a two years. Then spend like crazy, he has operated on bare bones for years, this will be interesting with all the capital.
 
PSU Blue said:
He needs to assemble his staff since he will accountable, I doubt he keeps any of them unless he is really sold on them. Then bring over preferably junior and senior ISU players, since he has said our 4-5 star kids only turn out that way after a two years. Then spend like crazy, he has operated on bare bones for years, this will be interesting with all the capital.
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Give him a functional GM and a support staff to help recruit and retain players.
 
Creamery said:
I say #1 is find a way to keep Terry Smith - make him Associate HC or whatever title he wants plus a hefty raise. Keep Terry and you may keep the locker room.

#2 is to recruit your own guys. Gotta retain as much of the young talent as possible

#3 - start planning to spend all that NIL money Kraft talked about in the interview on the transfer portal. With no 2026 recruiting class and many probable transfers we’re going to need a lot of new guys.

#4 what to do with AK and JK? I’d keep Knowles and remove Andy. PSU needs a new Offensive identity.
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I want nothing to do with AK or JK. Matt has a long time very respected DC he’s worked with for years so I assume he will be joining him as well as his OC who has been with him since he was a GA
 
Edit: I was wrong. Looks like Terry is staying.

No to Terry. He had a job at PSU for life with a big raise if he could have kept the refocusing that he did with the team about PSU. But it became self-promotion and then with the leaked video of Kraft from players trying to help the hire Terry effort by undermining the coaching search. So Terry can no longer be retained and whichever players recorded the AD without permission and leaked it need to have their lockers cleaned out. There is some rot in the locker room that caused the best collection of experienced talent that we've had in decades to give us the most disappointing season in NCAA history for a top 5 preseason team. That rot needs to get cleared out. We need a clean break from all Franklin staff as well.
 
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Creamery said:
I say #1 is find a way to keep Terry Smith - make him Associate HC or whatever title he wants plus a hefty raise. Keep Terry and you may keep the locker room.

#2 is to recruit your own guys. Gotta retain as much of the young talent as possible

#3 - start planning to spend all that NIL money Kraft talked about in the interview on the transfer portal. With no 2026 recruiting class and many probable transfers we’re going to need a lot of new guys.

#4 what to do with AK and JK? I’d keep Knowles and remove Andy. PSU needs a new Offensive identity.
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Keep Knowles? What the heck? Did you watch the UCLA or Rutgers games?

Dude needs to blow out both him and K.
 
LudicrousSpeedGO! said:
Edit: I was wrong. Looks like Terry is staying.

No to Terry. He had a job at PSU for life with a big raise if he could have kept the refocusing that he did with the team about PSU. But it became self-promotion and then with the leaked video of Kraft from players trying to help the hire Terry effort by undermining the coaching search. So Terry can no longer be retained and whichever players recorded the AD without permission and leaked it need to have their lockers cleaned out. There is some rot in the locker room that caused the best collection of experienced talent that we've had in decades to give us the most disappointing season in NCAA history for a top 5 preseason team. That rot needs to get cleared out. We need a clean break from all Franklin staff as well.
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Disagree. Keep Terry for continuity. Campbell will change the culture, Terry will not set the culture. We need Terry for recruiting and he is a good position coach.
 
Keeping Terry tells me that MC isn't coming in with the intentions to forget about the penn state tradition (like the previous guy). If Terry would have left, I believe that single handedly could have started him off on the wrong foot. Good move.
 
ryoder1 said:
Disagree. Keep Terry for continuity. Campbell will change the culture, Terry will not set the culture. We need Terry for recruiting and he is a good position coach.
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Yes, that is why in hindsight I edited my post. I'm ok admitting that I'm wrong when I am. I hope that I was because clearly Kraft thinks that I was.
 
Terry Smith. Comes from a PSU family. Was a letterman in PSU football's Golden Age. Worked for years as a HS coach and AD. Great recruiter and developer of football players. As interim coach, got the team back to playing Penn State football. Has the players' trust and respect. Bleeds blue and white. Campbell saw this and most likely received texts/calls/emails from coaches of other programs telling him he'd be nuts not to retain Terry.

Similar to the recent lesson learned by the Cracker Barrel organization.
 
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