Penn State's Matt Campbell's Reasoning for Leaving Iowa State Made Plenty of Sense

Leaving a place that coaches love often isn't a good thing, but in this era of coaches being paid a ton, NIL situations, and much more, it's not crazy to see them leave certain teams. 

Programs like Penn State typically can keep their head coach as long as they want because they pay just as well as anybody in the country.

Programs like Penn State, Michigan, Ohio State, Oregon, Alabama, Texas, Notre Dame, and others typically do a very good job of keeping the people they want around because of how much money they have.

When it comes to programs like Iowa State, the place where new Penn State head coach Matt Campbell came from, that's a different story. Campbell has been a very good coach throughout his career at Iowa State, but it seems like he knew it was time to move on. That isn't a shot at what the Cyclones have built out in Ames, but just the reality of where things currently stand in the college football world.

“I always said it had to be a place that you really felt you could go make a difference, and you were aligned to what you thought a place stood for and was about,” Campbell said, per On3. “I also felt like if we’re ever gonna leave, it would have to be somewhere you felt like you were convicted that you could go and make a positive impact and a positive difference.”

“I felt like, probably for me, (it was about) being called to go to the right place,” Campbell said. “Probably with even where Iowa State was at their time of wanting to compete and wanting to continue our football program in the right trajectory. I just think that was something maybe not as the same priority as what the time, the effort, and the energy we had put into building it into where it was today.”

Iowa State is always going to be a basketball school, even if the football program played as well as it did under Campbell. Basketball is the biggest priority out in Iowa, and rightfully so, considering the program it has.

Now, Campbell will have the full focus of Penn State and all of its donors, which seemingly has him rather excited.