The new era has officially begun in Happy Valley, folks.

Penn State’s Board of Trustees approved Matt Campbell to be the Nittany Lions’ new head coach on Monday.

Heading into the 2025 campaign, Penn State was ranked No. 2 in the first AP Poll. The Nittany Lions were loaded with talent, including Heisman candidate Drew Allar at quarterback, three new wide receivers, both star running backs, a veteran offensive line, and a stacked defense with incoming transfer linebacker Amare Campbell and upperclassmen leadership such as Dani Dennis-Sutton, Zuriah Fisher, and Zakee Wheatley at the helm.

James Franklin’s squad was supposed to be on the cusp of something that had never been done during his tenure: run the table, win the Big Ten title, and compete for a national championship.

Fast forward to December, and Penn State’s season has been a massive disappointment. The Nittany Lions lost six straight, including inexcusable back-to-back losses to UCLA and Northwestern after falling to Oregon in a two-overtime thriller.

The losses were enough for Vice President of Intercollegiate Athletics Pat Kraft to pull the plug on Franklin, ousting the 12-year head coach after a train-wreck start to a once-promising year.

“We have invested at the highest level, with that comes high expectations,” Kraft said on October 13, a day after firing the long-time head coach. “Ultimately, I believe a new leader can help us win a national championship, and now is the right time for this change.”

As Campbell settles into being the 17th head coach in the program’s history, those same expectations from the preseason linger.

“Matt Campbell is Penn State,” Kraft said Monday at Campbell’s introductory press conference. “Hard-nosed, humble, relentless, a developer of young men, and he’s built for championships. He embraces our expectations, not as pressure, but as a privilege.”

Now, Campbell doesn’t have championship experience; however, the former Iowa State head coach brought the Cyclones out of the depths of the Big 12 standings. Before he started in Ames, the Cyclones’ last winning season was in 2005, when Iowa State finished with a 7-5 record. In his second year, Campbell led his team to an eight-win season, its first since 2000.

During his tenure with his former institution, Campbell had eight winning seasons, including an 11-2 record in 2024, the program’s highest-win season ever, and a Big 12 Championship berth.

“We’re going to wake up every single day, and we’re going to build championship athletes,” Campbell said Monday. “We’re going to do it one day at a time, and we’re going to do it from the ground up, and we’re going to do it in a football program that’s going to demand toughness, mental and physical toughness, demand discipline at every corner, and demand, most importantly, togetherness, selflessness, and togetherness. One team, one program, unified to continue the great pride in the great tradition of Penn State football.”

Campbell also made a point to reflect on his first time walking into the Lasch building when he arrived in State College. He described the goosebumps that he felt seeing the 2,200 lettermen who have come through the program, listed on the wall.

“You knew their excellence and what they stood for: a blue-blood football program,” Campbell said. “No question the sacrifice, the passion of so many of you [lettermen], individually, to become the best and collectively to have some of the greatest teams in college football.”

In the press conference, Kraft called Penn State’s football program “the most storied program in all of sport,” leaving no doubt that the job Campbell has signed up for comes with sky-high expectations. Those same expectations got Franklin fired. But with the fresh start that Campbell aims to provide, the expectations are understood and will be cherished as he leads the team into the future.