New Penn State football head coach Matt Campbell’s rebuild of the Nittany Lions is not just happening inside the Lasch Football Building, on the coaching staff, or on the practice field. The former Iowa State man is also bringing change to the weight programs, the food the players eat, and the measurements given to recruits.

Since showing up in Happy Valley, Campbell has focused on adding more weight, height, and mass on the field at Beaver Stadium, hoping to compete with elite athletes across the country. The Massillon, Ohio, native said during the spring football press conference that the Nittany Lions put on over 480 pounds in the eight-week spring practice window.

This is different from former head coach James Franklin’s philosophy of not being a “weight for weight’s sake type of program” and of being “lean and athletic” rather than physically dominant.

The defensive line saw the biggest philosophical change with Campbell and defensive line coach Ikaika Malloe bringing in four portal additions over 315 pounds. In 2025, the Nittany Lions did not have a single defensive player weighing over 300.

“We totally reshaped the D-line. I think my vision, our vision, [is to be] bigger and physical,” Campbell said at his signing day press conference. “This is the Big Ten, you’ve got to stop the run. We’ve got to be big and physical in there. I feel like, especially on the interior portion of the defensive line, I think we totally reshaped things.”

Malloe brought two of those 300-pounders with him from UCLA. Siale Taupaki and Keanu Williams both spent the last three years with the Bruins and bring tons of experience to Penn State. Both players also played one season with new defensive coordinator D’Anton Lynn at UCLA in 2023.

“I think Keanu has been having a pretty good spring, and Siale will get going very shortly,” Malloe said in April. “We just wanted to be cautious with him. There’s some things we want to take care of, but for him, he will probably be one of our most athletic tackles that we see in a long time.”

Oklahoma State transfer Armstrong Nnodim is another potential contributor for Penn State this fall and is listed at 319 pounds. “The Pitbull”, as Malloe called him, received a ton of praise from offensive lineman Cooper Cousins during spring practice for being hard to move and a dominant bruiser on the line.

Campbell, Lynn, and Malloe, in general, are trying to do a better job of filling the gaps on the Penn State defensive line, which ranked No. 56 nationally in rush yards allowed in 2025 and was beaten by athletic quarterbacks such as Nico Iamaleava (128 rushing yards) and Mark Gronowski (130 yards).

This change in body type also affects high school recruiting, with Aniti Paiva (315) and Stanley Montgomery (300) both committing to Penn State in the 2027 class. The Nittany Lions’ last 300-pound defensive line commit was Cole Brevard in the 2020 class.

Campbell has also worked to change the look of the running back room. The new leader of the Nittany Lions has been successful with punishing backs such as David Montgomery and Breece Hall in the past, and seems to be trying to do the same in Happy Valley.

Following Campbell from Ames, Iowa, 220-pound Carson Hansen will likely be RB1 at the start of the season. The running back played in 11 games for Iowa State in 2025, recording 952 rushing yards on 188 attempts and six touchdowns. Campbell said he was one of the most trusted players physically the Cyclones had last year.

“He’s durable. He’s tough. He’s physical. He’s got great vision. He’s got the ability that if you need him to carry the ball 40 times in a game, he can do it,” Campbell said.

Hansen will likely be complemented with Ohio State transfer James Peoples, who has an “impressive build” and is a great downhill runner, according to Campbell. Peoples has experience catching passes and could play in the receiving back role on third down for Penn State.

Returning running back Quinton Martin Jr. is the most prominent example of a physical change in an individual player under the new regime. Despite rushing for 103 yards in the Pinstripe Bowl, he was tasked with adding almost 30 pounds in the spring. Campbell said he told him to increase from 195 to 220 during the 2025 season.

Wide receivers have also increased in size under Campbell and new position coach Kashif Moore. The Nittany Lions added four players who are at least six feet in the transfer portal, almost matching Penn State’s six total receivers above that mark in 2025.

“If you look at even the sizes and the shapes of our guys for the last 12 years, X receivers have looked like this, slot receivers have looked like this, Z receivers have looked like this, and they’ve had certain qualities,” Campbell said. “I think when you know what you’re looking for, it really helps the process be efficient.”

Campbell has seen a lot of success producing talented and tall receivers, such as Houston Texans Jaylin Noel. The Kansas City, Missouri, native was ranked as the No. 124 wide receiver in the class of 2021, but after four good years in Ames, he was drafted in the third round of the 2025 NFL Draft.

Moore also values size at receiver, helping Skyler Bell become a Biletnikoff Award Finalist. While the UConn player was only 6 feet tall, the wide receiver coach claimed his combination of speed and size was what made him so special in 2025.

The trend toward large, fast receivers has continued in the high school recruiting ranks. Penn State added 6-foot-2 Josiah Zayas, 6-foot-1 Amarion Jackson, and 6-foot-2 Ben Whitver to the roster in the 2026 class. Both 2027 commits at the position are also taller than six feet.

“I think [the receiver room is] an area we feel really confident in because for the last 10 years, that receiver room at Iowa State, that’s been our staple,” Campbell said after signing day. “And I know we’re coming to a place where we’ve kind of got to reshape that a little bit and bring that back to life.”