College Football

Matt Campbell Begins Building New Staff At Penn State

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Paul Bowman
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Paul Bowman Sports Editor

Penn State Great Valley MBA, Penn State Berks Undergrad, Eagle Scout and Vigil Honor, IT Service Manager. I joined Sports Talk Philly in 2017 and root for all the Philly teams (as well as their minor league counter parts).

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Published08 Jan 2026

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Terry Smith, PSU

With Penn State having officially hired a new head coach in Matt Campbell, a new era of football is starting in Happy Valley.

Now that Campbell is in place, it is critical that he get his staff in place so they can go to work on retaining members of the roster, landing some new recruits, and working on the transfer portal.

Keep up to date on the latest additions to the new Penn State staff here.

This page will be updated as further announcements are made.

Terry Smith, Associate Head Coach and Cornerbacks Coach

The first and potentially wisest addition to the staff was Terry Smith, who landed a four year deal to become the highest paid coach who isn’t a coordinator in college football.

His positional responsibilities aren’t known to anyone yet – he’ll fill in that as they see what other staff comes in.

Despite that, he bleeds blue and white and continues his presence of over a decade with the program, making it far easier to retain roster members and recruits while also giving Campbell at least one major recruiter on the East Coast where he may not have the same connections in place already.

Derek Hoodjer, Associate AD of Football Personnel

The second “official” announcement of an addition to the staff is an administrator that Campbell will bring with him from Iowa State.

In fact, he’d been at Iowa State longer than Campbell and Penn State becomes only the second program he’s staffed.

Hoodjer’s role appears to be similar to that of a GM and he had helped build a largely non-existent talent recruiting program into one that was able to begin pulling some major recruits in his time working with Campbell.

He’ll provide some recruiting continuity for Campbell and is an interesting hire for Penn State as Campbell’s “do more with less” standing has gotten that done on the recruiting and NIL aspects in large part due to the help of Hoodjer. Much like Campbell, it will be very interesting to see what he can do with top-level resources using what he’s already learned to maximize at a place with far less available to him.

Ryan Clanton, Offensive Line Coach

It’d seem like, unless this is a promotion, Phil Trautwein is gone.

Clanton joined Iowa State in 2023 and took over as OL coach but will reportedly be joining Penn State’s staff in a currently unknown role. Update: As of 12/11, Clanton is taking the same role as he had at Iowa State.

He was the OL coach and run game coordinator for Campbell for the past two seasons and oversaw a vast improvement in the play up front over the past three seasons in Ames.

Noah Pauley, Wide Receivers Coach

Pauley was the receivers coach at Iowa State and developed far more receivers than the last guy at Penn State could ever have dreamed of. Maybe his presence with the young, promising receivers at Penn State (should they stick with the team) could mean that the Nittany Lions don’t need to hit the transfer portal for multiple top receivers every single year.

— Brady Backhaus (@bbackhaus05) December 9, 2025

Taylor Mouse, Offensive Coordinator

This will be a test. Mouser is a long-time coach under Campbell, but he spent much of that time as a TE coach (8/10 years to be exact).

He was elevated to offensive coordinator the last two years. It will be an interesting hire for the B1G adjustment, but should help provide some familiarity between the HC and OC.

Deon Broomfield, Safeties Coach and Pass Game Coordinator

Another Iowa State staffer, Campbell will be bringing his DB coach to state college. That may not be a good sign for those that wanted to retain Poindexter from the previous staff.

Jack Griffith, Assistant General Manager

Matt Campbell is poaching University of Cincinnati’s Director of Player Personnel.

Griffith spent the past few years working on roster contraction and managing the portal for Cincinnati. Prior to that, he was a scout for the Jets for a year and spent a few years with Ohio State.

Trace McSorley, Assistant QB Coach

The former Penn State quarterback was a bit of a toss-up as to where he might be. While McSorley is a letterman and Campbell has noted he wants to really engage alumni, McSorley was not a Penn State commit originally and followed James Franklin to Penn State.

He’s also the only coach from Franklin’s era with the more front office/recruiting role that was given to Franklin-era letterman Aeneas Hawkins, who quickly bolted to VT after unconfirmed reports of that staff assisting in trying to destroy Penn State recruiting before they left.

McSorley is now expected to be retained in an unknown position, however. He was the assistant QB coach this past season.

Jake Waters, QB Coach

With O’Brien heading to VT, the Nittany Lions did have an opening at QB coach and it seems like Matt Campbell will be reaching back into his Iowa State staff for that.

Waters had been a graduate assistant under Campbell in 2017 and returned to the program in 2021, spending the past four seasons with Campbell. He’s been Campbell’s QB coach for two seasons.

Alan Zemaitis

Another PSU letterman that Campbell appears poised to retain, Zemaitis has been one of the more “front office” role type folks for Penn State in recent years.

He rejoined Penn State in 2021 and currently holds the role of Recruiting Coordinator for Personnel as one of the major players in Penn State’s recruiting over the past several years.

His new role may be the same, but it has yet to be announced.

Justin Cummings-Morrow, “Front Office”

Though no specific title is given, the Nittany Lions are adding a front office rising star in Justin Cummings-Morrow.


Despite being notes as Colorado State’s chief of staff, that’d be ignorable as he’s been with the team for less than a month – he had been at UConn for the previous three seasons in a role where he wound up as the “executive director of football” for a team that turned around an often terrible UConn team and made them into a nine-game winner for two years in a row. When UConn’s head coach took the Colorado State job, he brought along Cummings-Morrow, but it seems they won’t outbid Matt Campbell and Penn State for his services.

He overlapped with Campbell at Iowa State from 2016-2020 and could be a good front office hire from Campbell’s Iowa State background as his three years at UConn should make him far more familiar with the northeast than much of the current Iowa State staff would be. He also played under Campbell when the latter was coaching Toledo.

D’Anton Lynn, Defensive Coordinator

This is a big get – especially considering it was reported that Lynn did NOT want to come to Penn State last year to work under James Franklin.

The PSU letterman played CB in Happy Valley and will return home after three seasons as DC turning around the defenses at UCLA and USC.

The move brings a high-powered coach from a B1G rival and further shows Campbell’s commitment to bringing in qualified alumni to continue to help lead the program as Lynn is the first hire Campbell has made that has neither worked for him or already been with the program.

This is a major announcement that was needed ASAP so that the rest of the defensive coaching staff can get set (Anthony Poindexter and Dan Connor have not announced new positions for next year to this point) and they can begin true work on attempting to retain defensive players.

Justin Lustig, Special Teams

A bit of a surprise, but a positive one.

Matt Campbell is retaining Lustig on staff. This past season was his 25th coaching and his second at Penn State. In just his second year, Lustig coached Penn State, even in the midst of that ugly downfall Franklin was coaching, to have the top rated Special Teams unit in NCAA per ESPN’s analytics.

DeOn’Tae Pannell, Defense

An unspecified role, but the first fire coming after Lynn’s hiring will be one of his former PSU teammates – former OL DeOn’Tae Pannell.

Pannell just finished up his second season with Austin Peay as their defensive line coach.

Ikaika Malloe, Defensive Line Coach and Run Game Coordinator

This is a pretty big hire for Lynn, bringing in another power 5 DC to operate underneath him.

Lynn worked with Malloe during his time at UCLA.

Vita Vea and Laiatu Latu were two of his biggest risers under his defensive line coaching, so Penn State will hope that translates again

Tyson Veidt, Linebackers Coach

Matt Campbell’s new staff will now feature three different coaches who were P4 defensive coordinators during the 2025 season as he is reuniting with Tyson Veidt.

Veidt, unlike Lynn and Malloe, did not have a strong showing as DC at Cincinnati last year, but he’s had success as a linebacker’s coach and will join the team in an oversight role for the linebackers with input into the run game defense.

Dan Connor, Assistant Linebackers Coach

The last remaining key position coach from the 2025 staff to announce their plans was Connor. Although early reports said Campbell was working to keep him onboard, that same report said the same about Barnes, who left for South Carolina.

It looks like Campbell did get Connor to stay in Happy Valley, though, taking on an assistant LB role.

The role is probably not unlike what he did last season, seeing as the job descriptions, as they are being reported, have Veidt in a bit more of an advisory role rather than the hands-on positional coaching that Connor was doing this past season and will seemingly continue to do next season.

Xavier Quigley

No official announcement has been made or reported, but Iowa State’s director of college scouting/offense appears to have joined the Nittany Lions in a front office type role.

He’s changed his header on X to a picture of Beaver Stadium and has been retweeting every announcement about a Penn State return or transfer in, so that would indicate he’s moving to Happy Valley despite there being no official announcement at this time.

Christian Smith, Assistant Defensive Line Coach

The Nittany Lions are poaching a rival B1G position coach in Smith.

He spent three seasons at Northwestern where he was selected to the 2025 AFCA 35 Under 35 list as one of the top upcoming coaches.

Reports indicate he’ll specifically be working in a role to coach the edge rushers.

Smith did work as a graduate assistant at Iowa State after starting his coaching career at Toledo under Matt Campbell following his playing at Toledo under Campbell.

Worth noting: rather shortly after this news began to break, Northwestern edge rusher Anto Saka, named to the freaks list last year, entered the transfer portal with a do not contact tag.

Sheldon Croney Jr., Assistant Running Backs Coach

Croney played running back for four years at Iowa State under Campbell and joined his coaching staff for a few years. He spent 2025 as the running backs coach at Central Michigan and will reportedly take the assistant position role at Penn State (though there’s not been any official announcement of who the running backs coach is).

Savon Huggins, Running Backs Coach

Huggins becomes the last major piece of Campbell’s initial on-field staff.

Huggins helped Boston College to rush for over 2100 yards per season in each of the last three years and is known on the NJ recruiting trail as well as the Northeast in general. Those connections make him a good fit.

He does become a bit of the odd man out, however, with his previous coaching coming with Buffalo, Rutgers, and an internship in the NFL – making him the lone hire that doesn’t have a connection to Campbell or Penn State on the offense and the only coach on staff next year who doesn’t have a Campbell, PSU, or Lynn connection that’s being brought into this initial staff.

Reid Kagy, Head Strength & Conditioning Coach

Trent Slattenow, Director of Player Personnel

Skip Brabenec, Chief of Staff

Aaron Hillmann, Sport Performance Manager

 

Jon Heacock, Retired

Previous reports and revisions of this article claimed Heacock would be joining Matt Campbell in some capacity, but the coach has officially announced his retirement instead.