Penn State looks soft under Matt Campbell — a big step back from Franklin
Halfway through its first season after firing James Franklin, Penn State turned soft. That is the damning takeaway from a Friday loss to Northwestern, per www.usatoday.com, which shows Matt Campbell's first year in Happy Valley going haywire.
Campbell’s Nittany Lions look like a middling Big 12 team playing dress-up in a Big Ten uniform, according to www.usatoday.com. The diagnosis is blunt: Campbell imported his Iowa State roster and expected it to work in the Big Ten. It has not.
Back-to-back losses to Wisconsin and Northwestern have stripped away any grace period. The team Franklin left behind was supposed to be resolute along the lines of scrimmage, able to run the ball and grind out wins. Under Campbell, that identity has vanished.
What makes it worse is the contrast. Franklin was maddening for his inability to win the big one, earning the sarcastic nickname "Big Game James." But his teams were never soft. They were predictable, yes, and they stalled short of elite, but they brought a physical edge that this version of Penn State simply does not have.
The single most damning takeaway is not that Campbell has lost games. It is that the roster he built looks out of its depth in the conference it now calls home. A mid-level Big 12 squad in Big Ten uniforms is not a rebuild in progress; it is a step backward.
WHAT HAPPENED
The losses came in sequence, and both stung in the same way. Penn State fell to Wisconsin, then dropped Friday’s game to Northwestern, according to www.usatoday.com. Specific scores and statistics were not included in the source, but the outcome was clear enough: Campbell’s team was outmuscled in both outings.
Campbell assembled this group, and the source is blunt about the result. A vintage Franklin-coached squad would reduce it to a pulp. As it happened on Friday, Northwestern did the job instead.
The pattern is the problem. Penn State’s back-to-back losses to Wisconsin and Northwestern proved a mid-level Big 12 roster will struggle against mid-grade Big Ten opponents, per www.usatoday.com. That is not a one-off slip. It is a structural mismatch, exposed twice in two weeks.
Campbell imported his Iowa State roster and expected it to work in the Big Ten. The source makes the comparison explicit: these Nittany Lions look like a middling Big 12 team playing dress-up in a Big Ten uniform, because that is exactly what this team is.
Friday’s loss to Northwestern was the clearest indictment. The Wildcats are not a powerhouse, and yet they handled Penn State with ease. That is the kind of loss that strips away any remaining benefit of the doubt.
THE NUMBERS AND CONTEXT
The numbers tell a story of two very different coaches. James Franklin’s consistency of double-digit-win seasons became as commendable as his inability to win a big game was nauseating, per www.usatoday.com. That consistency earned him the sarcastic nickname “Big Game James.”
Franklin was a turkey sandwich, the source notes. You knew what you were getting, with few surprises — until he deviated from script in the final hour of his tenure and lost to two opponents he typically would’ve beaten.
That late stumble opened the door for change, and the change produced a chaotic coaching search before the hiring of Matt Campbell. Now halfway through the first season under Campbell, the contrast is stark. Exact win-loss records for either coach are not in the source, so the comparison rests on performance rather than totals.
What the source does confirm: Campbell’s Nittany Lions look like a middling Big 12 team playing dress-up in a Big Ten uniform. That assessment comes with a caveat — Penn State got an enviable Big Ten schedule draw in 2025, per www.usatoday.com, which makes the back-to-back losses to Wisconsin and Northwestern sting even more.
Franklin’s teams were resolute along the lines of scrimmage, ran the ball well, and passed it not well enough to elevate from good to elite. The devil you knew, in other words. Under Campbell, Penn State has traded that known quantity for something far less certain, and the early returns suggest the trade has not worked in the Nittany Lions’ favor.
WHY IT MATTERS
Part of what made James Franklin so reliable at Penn State is also what made him so maddening. You knew exactly what to expect, in ways both good and bad — and that predictability cut both ways.
Franklin's teams were resolute along the lines of scrimmage. They ran the ball well. They passed it not well enough to elevate from good to elite. That ceiling was the source of the sarcastic nickname "Big Game James," but the floor was high, and the double-digit-win seasons came with a dependable rhythm.
Penn State was due for a change. The change produced a chaotic coaching search before the hiring of Matt Campbell, and the early returns have made the departure look less like a reset and more like a step backward.
The writer admits they thought Penn State would look better than this — not because they loved Campbell's 2025 Cyclones, but because of the schedule draw. An enviable Big Ten slate made the back-to-back losses to Wisconsin and Northwestern sting even more, since the excuses were already stripped away before the season began.
Campbell's Nittany Lions look like a middling Big 12 team playing dress-up in a Big Ten uniform, per www.usatoday.com. The roster Campbell assembled would be reduced to a pulp against a vintage Franklin-coached squad — or, as Friday's loss to Northwestern showed, reduced to a pulp by a team that wasn't even vintage.
No direct quotes from Campbell or his players appear in the source, so the assessment rests entirely on what the team has shown on the field. What it has shown is a team that traded a known, maddening ceiling for something far more uncertain — and far softer.
WHAT TO WATCH NEXT
The article is an opinion piece published after Week 5, per www.usatoday.com, which means the second half of Penn State’s season is still entirely unwritten.
What fans should watch now is whether Campbell can correct course — or whether the softness is structural, not fixable. The back-to-back losses to Wisconsin and Northwestern have already happened, per www.usatoday.com, and they stripped away the schedule-draw excuse.
Any specific upcoming games, dates, or roster changes are not in the source. No opponent names, no kickoff times, no depth-chart shakeups have been confirmed. The only certainty is that Penn State sits halfway through its first season under Campbell, per www.usatoday.com, with a roster that has already been exposed.
The question is whether the second half offers a reset or a rerun. Campbell imported his Iowa State roster and expected it to work in the Big Ten, and it hasn’t. The mid-level Big 12 roster that lost to Wisconsin and Northwestern doesn’t change overnight — but the schedule might offer a softer landing.
That’s the watch item: not a specific game, but whether Campbell can find any sign of the resolute lines of scrimmage and reliable run game that defined Franklin’s teams. If the second half looks like the first, the "Big Game James" era starts looking better in hindsight.
No one in the source offers a timeline for answers. The assessment rests on what’s already been shown, and what’s been shown is a team that traded a known, maddening ceiling for something far more uncertain — and far softer.
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