HC Matt Campbell's honeymoon is already over at Penn State

Penn State fired former head coach James Franklin because it felt like it wasn't reaching the next level as a program. A brutal start to the 2025 season full of upset losses was simply the breaking point for his tenure. 

Only winning the games it should win, and then losing to the top teams in the biggest moments, was no longer deemed acceptable. 

Especially when it stopped winning the games it should. 

The hope is that Matt Campbell, coming over from Iowa State, will be the coach to get them to the next level. 

He might eventually get them there. 

But the honeymoon portion of the Campbell-Penn State relationship might already be over thanks to Saturday's stunning 24-20 loss to Wisconsin.

The Matt Campbell honeymoon phase at Penn State might already be over

This is one of the games Penn State should win.

This is one of the games Penn State did win for years under Franklin, and it was the type of win that would immediately get dismissed at the end of a 10-win season that resulted in two losses to top-five teams. 

But it's not just that Penn State lost a home game to a 9.5-point underdog that is going to be angering Penn State fans. 

It's the fact that it had a 17-0 lead in that game, and a 20-10 lead with five minutes to play, and could not get the job done. 

Now it puts even more pressure on Campbell and his team to win the upcoming games against the ranked teams that are on its schedule.

Penn State doesn't have to deal with Oregon, Ohio State or Indiana this season, and it even avoided an Iowa team that looks like it is going to be a problem as part of its Big Ten schedule. All of that helped raise the expectations for what might be possible this season. 

But it does still have USC and a road game at Michigan looming in the coming weeks. They are going to have to win at least one of those games, and perhaps both, to erase the sour taste of this game and start changing the narrative of the program. 

If they don't? It's going to feel all too familiar around Happy Valley, and also leave open the possibility of dropping another game they shouldn't along the way. 

Maybe this is unfair to a first-year coach four games into his tenure. It probably is. But nothing about college sports seems fair anymore. Especially when that is the expectation Penn State set for itself when it decided the status quo was not good enough.