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Penn State's Matt Campbell is throwing stones at Texas from inside a glass house

Not sure this is move for the Nittany Lions' head coach...
BySam Fariss
Matt Campbell, Oct. 10, USC at Penn State
Matt Campbell, Oct. 10, USC at Penn State | Icon Sportswire/GettyImages

Matt Campbell is a good college football coach, but he has yet to prove himself as a great one (kind of Oregon's Dan Lanning and yes, even Texas's Steve Sarkisian).

For the last decade, Campbell was the head coach of the Iowa State Cyclones and undeniably made a name for himself, going 72-55 overall and 50-40 in the Big 12. That's why he was named the head coach of the Penn State Nittany Lions this offseason.

However, he's gone 3-3 to start the year at Penn State, and that includes going 0-3 in the Big Ten, his new conference.

That's why it came as such a genuine surprise to me when he started throwing shade at teams like the Texas Longhorns and the Ohio State Buckeyes.

"This is College Football Town, USA. We are not living in Austin, Texas, or Columbus, Ohio, where you’re just part of it. We are it," Campbell reportedly says to recruits to make Penn State sound like an ideal program.

You could almost excuse his shade toward the Ohio State Buckeyes, who call Columbus home. He is coaching in their conference now, and the two teams are kind of, sort of in the same geographic region, so they go head-to-head for recruits pretty often.

However, what in the world do the Horns have to do with anything? Sure, the state of Texas produces a lot of the top talent every single recruiting cycle, but he certainly wasn't going after those prospects at Iowa State, and he certainly wasn't landing them in his first year with the Nittany Lions.

Matt Campbell must prove himself in the Big Ten before dishing out any more shade

First of all, he should maybe look to find his footing at his new school and within his new conference before turning his attention to diminishing other programs. Simply put, a 0-3 record in Big Ten play, with losses to unranked Wisconsin, unranked Northwestern, and No. 19 USC, isn't going to fly at Penn State.

Furthermore, of all the teams to call out from beyond the Big Ten, I'm not sure Texas is one that Campbell has any grounds to go up against.

While the Horns were still in the Big 12, before leaving for higher ground in the SEC, Campbell only went 3-5 against Texas, and his last win over the Horns came in 2021 (five years ago). Once Sarkisian took over on the 40 Acres in 2021, Campbell went 1-2 against Texas, only defeating the Longhorns in Sarkisian's first year as head coach.

Simply put, Campbell has a lot of other things to worry about before he starts throwing other programs under the bus on the recruiting trail, especially two teams he has yet to get a real handle on throughout this career or even share a field with this year.

Luckily for him, Penn State isn't scheduled to play Ohio State in the regular season, and with the trajectory he currently has the Nittany Lions on, a berth in the College Football Playoff to play either the Buckeyes or the Longhorns is looking extremely unlikely.

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