New coach, new season, new questions, new Penn State reporter

So Jake, you know, you hit all the marks with what kind of what, you know, the messaging, right, of Matt Campbell, his staff, a little bit of his players, his veteran players.

But at his core, it's been very clear to me covering him this preseason.

This is a football guy, and I think when he's on the sideline, I think when he's on the practice field, the fangs come out a little bit, just like it's natural to expect.

It's easy to see, though, why he can build a program.

He's a culture builder.

It's easy to see why he had success at Iowa state.

And before that, you know, in the Mac at Toledo, it's easy to see why he was, even though it was division three, he was a terrific player.

I think that team he played on might've lost, might only lost one game, but he is, he is, he is a football guy for the ground up.

And the reason I say that it goes into one of the things just, I wanted to talk about with you is he, he was super excited on Thursday about, So we're recording this Friday morning.

He is super excited about there's going to be a live scrimmage on Saturday at Beaver Stadium.

And he wants to find some things out about this team.

It's one thing to talk about it.

It's one thing to do installs.

It's one thing to rep it in drills.

But they're going to hit each other.

He's going to put some players to the test.

He needs to find out a lot.

about a ton of people.

At their core, he believes in Penn State's reserve players that have proven themselves.

I think at his core, he knows what he has in the Iowa State veterans that have been really good players for him the last couple of years.

But that's only...

You know, what is that, 15%, 20% of the roster? I mean, he's got to find out about the young players who can play.

He's got to find out about the other transfers or whether they're ready for the spotlight at a place like Penn State.

And he wants to see what happens when some of these guys that played at maybe smaller programs or played in high school get hit in the face and how they're going to respond.

He uses the word adversity more than any coach I can ever remember.

So Jake, you know, you hit all the marks with what kind of what, you know, the messaging, right, of Matt Campbell, his staff, a little bit of his players, his veteran players.

But at his core, it's been very clear to me covering him this preseason.

This is a football guy, and I think when he's on the sideline, I think when he's on the practice field, the fangs come out a little bit, just like it's natural to expect.

It's easy to see, though, why he can build a program.

He's a culture builder.

It's easy to see why he had success at Iowa state.

And before that, you know, in the Mac at Toledo, it's easy to see why he was, even though it was division three, he was a terrific player.

I think that team he played on might've lost, might only lost one game, but he is, he is, he is a football guy for the ground up.

And the reason I say that it goes into one of the things just, I wanted to talk about with you is he, he was super excited on Thursday about, So we're recording this Friday morning.

He is super excited about there's going to be a live scrimmage on Saturday at Beaver Stadium.

And he wants to find some things out about this team.

It's one thing to talk about it.

It's one thing to do installs.

It's one thing to rep it in drills.

But they're going to hit each other.

He's going to put some players to the test.

He needs to find out a lot.

about a ton of people.

At their core, he believes in Penn State's reserve players that have proven themselves.

I think at his core, he knows what he has in the Iowa State veterans that have been really good players for him the last couple of years.

But that's only...

You know, what is that, 15%, 20% of the roster? I mean, he's got to find out about the young players who can play.

He's got to find out about the other transfers or whether they're ready for the spotlight at a place like Penn State.

And he wants to see what happens when some of these guys that played at maybe smaller programs or played in high school get hit in the face and how they're going to respond.

He uses the word adversity more than any coach I can ever remember.