If not Urban Meyer, who will USC want to replace Clay Helton?

Matt Campbell seems to have a good thing going in Ames with his Iowa State Cyclones. He has made this bottom-tier Big 12 team capable of winning nine games a year and hang around the top-third of that Power 5 conference. Iowa State wins a lot of games and never gets blown out, despite having the least fruitful recruiting base in the Big 12.

Campbell can stay in Ames as long as he wants, as he has brought stability to an Iowa State program that has never had it. He may very well want to become Iowa State’s version of Barry Alvarez, Hayden Fry or Bill Snyder by making a program that wins twice as many games as it should geographically. That being said, we all know he’s destined for something bigger.

Campbell may have quite frankly hit Iowa State’s ceiling as a program. Do you think the Cyclones are going to ever win the Big 12? Me neither. But if he does leave, it will certainly be a big step up in notoriety, as it will be for either a college football blue-blood or entering the NFL with a horrendously dysfunctional franchise.

He could be a candidate for current college football vacancies with the Arkansas Razorbacks and the Florida State Seminoles. Campbell could have success at both stops for sure. Heck, he might even be a candidate for the Washington Redskins at the professional level. But Campbell’s steadiness and blue-collar mentality would be a great fit to overhaul a soft USC program.