Penn State Sports Magazine
Issue link: https://comanpub.uberflip.com/i/1545675
/ / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / / T H E B I G P I C T U R E / / / / / / / last season. Throw in Becht's 116 rushing yards, and those five players produced 53.4 percent of Iowa State's 4,751 total offensive yards in 2025. An interesting footnote to their suc- cess is that none of those players received a four-star grade in the Rivals Industry Ranking coming out of high school. All were three-star players, and only two of them— Becht and Brahmer — ranked among the top 900 prospects in their respective classes. That Iowa State went 19-7 over the past two seasons — 11-3 in 2024 and 8-4 in an injury-riddled 2025 campaign — speaks to the Cyclones' aptitude for player de- velopment under Campbell and his staff. The challenge ahead is to see if that ap- proach can deliver results at a place like Penn State. While Indiana has proven that its model can work in the Big Ten, the sample size is small. Before last year, the model that worked was to hit up your megadonors for NIL cash and use it to retain your best players while showering the rest on elite transfers and the nation's most coveted recruits. If the various post-spring media polls are any indication, the latter approach still has a lot of fervent believers. CBS Sports has Ohio State first, Texas sec- ond and Oregon third, while Joel Klatt of FOX Sports flipflops the Buckeyes and Ducks and swaps in Notre Dame for the Longhorns. In Bill Connelly's more data- driven SP+ rankings at ESPN, Ohio State and Oregon are 1-2. Penn State is hanging around the pe- riphery of all those polls, garnering at- tention as a dark horse playoff contender. The Nittany Lions are 15th in Klatt's rank- ings primarily because of a schedule that "falls in their favor." They're 20th in the CBS Sports poll and 17th in the SP+ rank- ings. We'll know soon enough whether the Nittany Lions can outperform those middling expectations. In the meantime, Campbell is confident that his approach to team- and culture-building can pro- duce wins. "As crazy as our world has gotten, I still feel like the reality is, can you build a team that has the ability to withstand the emo- tional, mental and physical challenges of a college football season?" he said. "I don't know if that's ever really changed, and I don't know if it ever will in our sport, because our sport demands that kind of resiliency. It's going to always bring you adversity, and you're going to be defined by your ability to overcome it and perse- vere through it. "I think those characteristics are the same no matter what level you're at, and no matter what level of recruiting. I think that's your responsibility as the coach — to put that kind of team together and find the best way to get it done." ■ Penn State's intercollegiate football program was already five years old when it formally named a head coach, three-year letterman George Hoskins. Since 1892, when Hoskins be - came the first man to hold the title, the Nittany Lion football program has had 17 head coaches, the latest being Matt Campbell, who came aboard in December. Of those 17 coaches, nine compiled winning records in their debut campaigns with the Lions. Here, ranked by winning percentage, are the five best seasons by first-year Penn State head coaches. 1. Bill Hollenback | 1909 Hollenback went straight from an All-America playing career at Penn to Penn State's head coaching job. He was the youngest head coach in the country at age 23, and he led the team to five shutout wins, including a 31-0 rout of Grove City on opening day, the first game ever played at New Beaver Field. Record: 5-0-2 (.857) 2. George Hoskins | 1892 Hoskins was a player-coach for the fledgling Penn State program, which had begun intercollegiate competition in 1887. After dropping its first game at Penn, 20-0, his team won five in a row, all by shutout. The only home game that season was an 18-0 victory over Bucknell that was played on Old Main lawn. Record: 5-1 (.833) 3. Dick Harlow | 1915 Harlow had been a two-year letterman for the Lions before becoming head coach. His first team lost only twice — shutouts against Harvard and Pitt, both on the road. Penn State won its other seven games by a combined margin of 147-18. Record: 7-2 (.778) 4. Jack Hollenback | 1910 When Bill Hollenback left Penn State for Mis - souri, his brother Jack inherited the head coach- ing position. He went 4-0-1 at home during a season in which Penn State charged admission for the first time. Bill returned the following year, and Jack headed to the Pennsylvania Military College. He later gave up coaching to open a dental practice. Record: 5-2-1 (.688) 5. Bill O'Brien | 2012 Penn State had been heavily sanctioned by the NCAA just weeks before the start of preseason practice, yet with the help of key players like Mi - chael Mauti and Michael Zordich, O'Brien held his team together. After opening sluggishly with losses to Ohio and Virginia, the Nittany Lions won eight of their final 10. Among his postsea - son accolades, O'Brien was named the Bear Bry- ant National Coach of the Year. Record: 8-4 (.667) — Matt Herb PSU's Five Winningest Head Coaching Debuts Bill O'Brien received Big Ten and national coach of the year honors after guiding Penn State to an 8-4 finish in 2012. PHOTO BY STEVE MANUEL A U G U S T 2 0 2 6 2 1 W W W . B L U E W H I T E O N L I N E . C O M