Iowa State football coach Matt Campbell’s odds of being the next Penn State football coach are dramatically increasing, according to Kalshi, a federally regulated event trading exchange. On Tuesday, Campbell’s odds were at 3%, but by the afternoon of Thursday, December 4th, Campbell’s odds were at over 50%.
Here’s how the day unfolded, which we tracked on the Heartland College Sports X account.
And within four hours, Campbell had taken a decisive lead in the race, skyrocketing past Terry Smith as the odds on favorite to be the next head coach of the Nittany Lions.
And by the evening, when reports from On3 and ESPN surfaced about Campbell being the target for Penn State, the odds jumped even further.
Now this doesn’t mean it’s a done deal, but athletic director Pat Kraft is desperate to rebound from several misses in this coaching carousel. And we know he has the money to toss around for the right candidate. Earlier this week, it was believed that Penn State was zeroing in on BYU’s Kalani Sitake, but Sitake elected to stick with the Cougars.
Matt Campbell has been the target of many college and NFL jobs over the years, but has elected to stay loyal to Iowa State. This season, the Cyclones went 8-4, which included a mid-season swoon that saw the Cyclones lose four in a row. But they finished the season with three-straight wins to reach the eight-win mark for the fifth time in Campbell’s tenure.
Matt Campbell’s career at Iowa State transformed the Cyclones from a perennial Big 12 afterthought into a consistent, tough, nationally respected program. Taking over in 2016, Campbell led ISU to five consecutive winning conference records from 2017–2021 and delivered the school’s first-ever New Year’s Six bowl win in the 2020 Fiesta Bowl. He developed a physical, disciplined identity, produced NFL talent like Brock Purdy and Breece Hall, and engineered multiple top-10 upsets. Iowa State has been bowl eligible in four of their five seasons since the 2020 Fiesta Bowl, including last year’s program-best 11-win season, which included a trip to the Big 12 Championship Game.
