Matt Campbell earns first statement win as Iowa State head football coach

With the win over Oklahoma on Saturday, Matt Campbell has put everyone on alert that he’s not in Ames to mess around.

Each and every year, new hotshot college football head coaches coming up the ranks start to earn a well-deserved spotlight for themselves, which tends to lead to bigger jobs within the industry. Two years ago, one of these coaches was Matt Campbell, who was quickly making a name for himself leading the Toledo Rockets of the MAC. In five seasons leading Toledo, Campbell was 35-15 and that sort of success led to him being hired as the head coach of the Iowa State Cyclones prior to the 2016 season. Obviously, with Campbell being such a big, young name on the trail, optimism in Ames was the highest it had been in a while.

Campbell struggled through a 3-9 season last year in his first season at the helm, but there was a reason to believe that the 37-year-old head coach could start putting the wheels in motion for this Cyclones program to enjoy a turnaround here in his second year. One way Campbell could show that this program is growing is by earning a statement win at some time, which he did on Saturday. However, I’m not so sure anyone saw this game as the win where Campbell would put everyone on notice.

Saturday, Campbell took his squad on the road to Norman to face off with the No. 3 Oklahoma Sooners, a game in which they were a 30-point underdog. To make matters worse, they would have to go this one without starting quarterback Jacob Park, who took a leave of absence from the team recently to deal with unspecified medical issues. To say Campbell’s chances of pulling off a win in this one were slim would be one of the biggest understatements of the season.

Well, Campbell is not here for your betting odds or your opinions, he’s here to build something in Ames, Iowa and he seems to be doing just that. With everything stacked against him and his team, Campbell coached his squad back to stun the Sooners — and most of the country — 38-31.

Early on in his Big 12 tenure, Campbell needed to find a statement win somewhere, and there was no place better he could have found it than the hostile environment that is Norman, Oklahoma. Being within that environment and coaching your team from behind to take down one of the best teams in the country delivers a statement and puts everyone in the Big 12 Conference on notice.

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Folks in Ames were excited to see the progression of the Cyclones program the day Campbell was handed the keys to the car, and after toppling the Sooners on Saturday, there’s even more of a reason to be excited about what’s happening with Iowa State.