STATE COLLEGE, Pa. -- Matt Campbell sits back on a sofa inside the head coach's office that overlooks Penn State's practice fields. Four months into the job, the room still looks like he arrived that morning.
A half-dozen white Nittany Lions helmets sit stacked on a multitiered shelf behind him. In front of him, a faded Rose Bowl trophy rests on the coffee table, its shine long gone. A lone photo of Beaver Stadium hangs on the wall near his desk.
Otherwise, the spacious second-floor office in the Lasch football building remains bare.
"Decorating the office is last on the list," Campbell says. "But we'll get there."
Penn State's first-year coach has had other priorities.
In December, one of his first moves was to invite every player from last season's roster into his office for one-on-one meetings.
Many of them didn't know where it was.
"When I played here, you never came up to the second floor unless you were in trouble," said new Penn State defensive coordinator D'Anton Lynn, who started 37 games at cornerback for the Nittany Lions from 2009-11. "I can't tell you what my defensive coordinator's office looked like.
"Now there's players up here all the time."
Penn State hired Campbell in part to win the big games that had slipped away under James Franklin. During Franklin's tenure, the Nittany Lions went 1-18 against top-10 Big Ten opponents. To reverse that trend, Campbell has been reshaping how Penn State operates, from the inside out.
Opening his office door was just the start.
Campbell has since met with each player individually at least twice more -- after finalizing his coaching staff and again before the team broke for spring break.
He has even given players the keypad code that once kept the office locked and off limits.
Campbell plans to knock down a wall, shrinking his own office, so the adjoining conference room can hold more people. It's part of his push to bring everyone who works with players -- from strength coaches to academic advisers -- into the same room at once.
Other walls have been coming down, too. Players -- both returning Nittany Lions and the 25 Iowa State transfers who followed Campbell from Ames -- say a new chemistry in the locker room is already taking shape.
"Coach Campbell and his staff have done a phenomenal job of getting us all to gel together," said junior guard Cooper Cousins, who earned a starting role for the Nittany Lions late last season. "We've had tight groups here.
"But this is the closest one I've seen."
WHEN PENN STATE reconvened for winter workouts at the beginning of the second semester, the players learned there'd be a draft.
Campbell and his staff wanted to build camaraderie, create player-to-player accountability and eliminate any potential divide between returners and new arrivals. So he brought over a tradition that he had used in Ames.
Two upperclassmen -- a returning Penn State player and an Iowa State transfer -- drafted eight teams of 12-14 players, plus an assistant coach.
"The idea of it was scarier than when we actually got them in front of each other," said new offensive coordinator Taylor Mouser, who came with Campbell from Iowa State. "The Penn State guys would be worried we'd play favorites, and the Iowa State guys would be worried they wouldn't get to play because they're going up against Penn State guys."
Competition began immediately, with a weekly winner and loser -- and real stakes.
Teams earned points by sitting in the first two rows of class and lost points for showing up late. They've been rewarded for community service, like packing lunches for kids or visiting elementary school students. At the entrance to the Lasch building hangs a poster from a local class thanking players for reading to them.
Each week's scorecard culminates with a Friday challenge.
Over the winter, that ranged from which team burned the most calories on the assault bike to which team could drag a sled loaded with weight room plates the length of the football field the fastest.
During spring practice, the Friday challenges shifted to a softball home run derby on baseball's Opening Day, an egg toss before Easter weekend and, preceding the Masters, a chipping contest.
Weekly winners receive Penn State swag and applause from the rest of the team. The losers -- the assistant coach included -- report at 5:45 a.m. on their off day to restock fridges, clean silverware and mop the weight room floor.
"My shoulders were smoked the other day from freaking moving all that stuff," said Mouser, whose team had just lost two weeks in a row. "But there's a level of accountability with everything. ... The image of one reflects the image of everybody -- everybody in that stadium is affected if you drop the ball. It's hard to replicate that in practice when you're just catching routes on air. You want those guys to feel pressure now -- so when you get in front of 110,000 people, you're not overwhelmed by the moment."
Players note they're holding one another accountable in a way they didn't always before. After losing the first week, Cousins gathered his team and told them they would do whatever it took never to lose again.
"All the leaders are now checking in with every single person on their team. ... We're learning that it's on us to execute," he said. "I feel like that's where we've been losing big games. Yes, the coaches have to coach us, but this is our team. We have to hold each other accountable. If I don't do my job, I'm screwing over the team. The players have to execute their job for us to get over the hump."
Quarterback Rocco Becht, who followed Campbell from Iowa State, said he's seeing Campbell's vision quickly take hold.
"He wants to build a player-led program," said Becht, who arrived with 64 career touchdown passes over three years starting for the Cyclones. "When you're not all aligned with the same goals and expectations, you're not going to win those big games. ... Last year, it wasn't really player-led and the culture just wasn't always there.
"Right now, where we are, everyone is completely bought in."
AFTER IOWA STATE'S 2025 season ended with a third straight win -- a 20-13 victory at Oklahoma State -- Campbell fully expected to return to Ames for an 11th year.
"We come home, I literally meet with our seniors that Monday back in Ames about, 'Hey, are you playing in the bowl game?' And then with our juniors: 'Are you staying here at Iowa State?'" Campbell recalled.
The three-time Big 12 Coach of the Year and winningest coach in Iowa State history had rebuffed overtures from other big-time college programs over the years, including from Texas and USC according to sources. In 2021, Campbell initially agreed to coach the Detroit Lions before changing his mind; the Lions hired Dan Campbell instead.
"Leaving Ames wasn't something that I was looking to do or wanting to do," he said.
But that first December week, after BYU coach Kalani Sitake declined the Nittany Lions' offer, the search shifted to Campbell.
To Campbell, Penn State felt different from the opportunities he'd turned down before.
He grew up in Massillon, Ohio, about four hours from State College. His grandparents were big Penn State fans. He also saw similarities in the small-town feel between State College and Ames -- and knew the commitment to football at Penn State would be unwavering.
"Ames was a great place to build culture and team. You certainly knew in its finest moments here at Penn State, that existed -- that culture, community, unification, everybody pulling in the same direction, when done correctly, that still could exist," Campbell said. "I felt called to that. Could you help unify, align and heal the football building and [fulfill] that deep responsibility to this incredible culture of football that's existed in some unbelievable moments -- and bring all that back together?"
Before making his decision, Campbell called former Ohio State coach Jim Tressel, a mentor who vouched for Penn State president Neeli Bendapudi -- a former Ohio State professor -- and encouraged him to consider the job.
By Friday, Campbell had decided to take it.
That evening, Campbell briefly addressed his Iowa State players, then told them he'd be in his office if anyone wanted to talk, before turning the meeting over to athletic director Jamie Pollard.
Campbell didn't leave his office until 3:30 a.m.
"He stayed in his office and waited to talk to every single person in that program," Becht said. "That spoke to who that guy is. It was awesome, especially for the players who were walk-ons or guys who didn't play as much."
When Campbell finished, a dozen student equipment managers helped him pack up his office.
FROM HIS OFFICE, Campbell is on the phone with former Penn State great and San Francisco 49ers All-Pro linebacker NaVorro Bowman.
Campbell has made a concerted effort to bring back Penn State football alums to campus this spring to reconnect with the current team. That same day, former Nittany Lions All-America defensive tackle and Detroit Lions general manager Matt Millen sat in on offensive line meetings.
Each weekend this spring, Campbell has invited former players by decade to eat dinner with the players in the letterman's lounge at the stadium on Friday, then address them on Saturday.
"The players haven't been around a lot of the former players much," Lynn said. "[Campbell] has done a great job of bridging that gap. I know the former players absolutely love it, but our players are enjoying it, too."
Terry Smith -- Penn State's interim head coach last year after Franklin was fired, who guided the Nittany Lions to four consecutive wins to end the season -- has been tickled seeing all the former players trickle in throughout the spring.
"It's been so great seeing all these guys," said Smith, a three-year starting wide receiver at Penn State in the early 1990s who has been a Nittany Lions assistant coach since 2014.
Penn State returners from last year's team say it was meaningful that Campbell retained Smith as a cornerbacks coach and associate head coach.
"Terry cares about this place so much and we love Terry," Cousins said. "He's been such an ambassador for not only this football program, but this university about what it truly means to be a Penn Stater. Having him back has been huge -- and super motivating."
Campbell also brought back another Penn Stater: Lynn, who twice in recent years had turned down offers to return as the Nittany Lions' defensive coordinator.
Until Campbell reached out, Lynn had never spoken with him before.
"But the more I talked to Coach Campbell, it reminded me of why I went to Penn State as a high school recruit," said Lynn, who previously was USC's defensive coordinator. "His vision for the program. ... I just felt like, 'Man, this guy's a perfect fit for Penn State.' The culture is going to be different. The atmosphere is going to be different -- I just really wanted to be a part of what he was going to do here."
Campbell asked Lynn to contact several Iowa State defensive players who were in the transfer portal.
"I'm getting my recruiting hat on, getting ready to recruit these kids here," Lynn recalled. "Every single one of them essentially told me, 'Coach, I appreciate you calling, but it didn't matter who the defensive coordinator was going to be. I was going to Penn State because I trust Coach Campbell.' That's what every single kid told me. I never heard players respect a coach the way those Iowa State kids respected him."
Becht had offers to transfer elsewhere. But after a 15-minute phone call with San Francisco 49ers quarterback Brock Purdy, who played for Campbell at Iowa State, Becht knew he was going to Penn State, too.
"The trust he had in Coach Campbell, that just brought me clarity," Becht said. "What he's been able to do and how he leads a program the right way is something that I wanted to be a part of my last year."
FIVE GAMES INTO Campbell's second season at Iowa State in 2017, the Cyclones traveled to Oklahoma without their starting quarterback as 31-point underdogs. Iowa State had defeated the Sooners just once since 1961.
But that day in Norman, the Cyclones stunned Heisman Trophy winner Baker Mayfield and third-ranked Oklahoma 38-31.
It's the kind of victory that has eluded Penn State in recent years, as the Nittany Lions lost 15 straight games to AP top-10 opponents under Franklin. Campbell has already begun challenging his players to change that narrative.
"It gets brought up a lot in our team meetings -- he makes sure we know about it," Becht said. "The fans should expect us to win those big games because of the history of Penn State."
That history is magnified on the first floor of the Lasch building, where portraits of Nittany Lions greats line the main hall.
Upstairs, in quarterbacks coach Jake Waters' office, Becht sprawls on a couch watching film. Just outside Campbell's office, players stop for coffee while Millen waits nearby for that day's walk-through.
The second floor isn't empty anymore.
"How you do anything is how you do everything -- it shows up when it matters the most," Campbell said. "What we're all chasing is being great in that moment."