The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Iowa State coach holds key to top openings
Interested observers of Matt Campbell from Los Angeles to Baton Rouge, La., to Gainesville, Fla., may be looking for a blueprint as to how a pursuit could proceed in the coming days. There is one man other than Campbell himself who can be of some assistance — the only athletic director who has ever seen the long-coveted Iowa State head coach say goodbye to a place he loves.
The man’s name is Mike O’brien, and he’s been the Toledo athletic director for two decades. O’brien oversaw the promotion of Campbell to offensive coordinator, named him interim head coach when Tim Beckman left for Illinois, evaluated his performance in that role — “It was as if nothing had changed,” he would note — and then made Campbell, at age 32, the youngest head coach at the Football Bowl Subdivision level.
The two developed a strong bond as Campbell won 35 games in four seasons, but O’brien always knew, possibly even more than young Campbell, that it would come to an end. That’s just how it was in the Mid-american Conference —
if a coach had success, he left.
Thanksgiving weekend in 2015, Campbell’s moment arrived. The Rockets played Western Michigan that Friday, and after a tough loss, Campbell found O’brien and told him that he was going to meet with Iowa State Athletic Director Jamie Pollard on Saturday morning in Toledo.
“I assumed it was over,” O’brien says.
The next day, Campbell met with O’brien and told him he had accepted the job.
“Matt shed a tear or two, that’s fair to say,” O’brien recalls. “Our conversation
was difficult. We had a wonderful Ad-head coach relationship. I offered him his first head coaching opportunity. He was very open about our success at Toledo and the times we had.”
Next, Campbell met with his team, and, with that, he was on a flight to Ames that Saturday night.
But, once at Iowa State, he made one thing very clear in his early interviews.
“I thought I’d be at Toledo the rest of my life, and I’ll be honest with you, totally happy with that,” Campbell told the Des Moines Register. “My whole thing was always about people and surrounding yourself with great people. … It’s never been about the level. That had zero to do with why I coach or why I’ve wanted to go or any of those things.”
The last few years, after quickly building Iowa State into a respectable Big 12 outfit and a fixture in the Top 25, Campbell has reinforced that sentiment with solid rock (fitting for a guy whose first job out of college was as at a cement company in his native Massillon, Ohio). Campbell’s name has been bandied about for various NFL and Power Five openings, reportedly turning down an offer to coach the Detroit Lions last offseason before signing an extension with Iowa State.
Campbell’s repeated decision to stay at Iowa State, traditionally one of the least successful Power Five programs, has been viewed as unconventional, to say the least.
“Well, he’s a very loyal person,” says Gregg Brandon, the former Bowling Green head coach who gave Campbell his first job as a graduate assistant in 2003. “That’s what I noticed about him as a young coach . ... He’s just all in. His head is where his butt is.”