Philadelphia Eagles' coach Nick Sirianni raves over Penn State hiring Matt Campbell

Philadelphia Eagles head coach Nick Sirianni raved over Penn State hiring Iowa State’s Matt Campbell as their new head coach. Sirianni and Campbell were roommates during their playing days at Mount Union between 1999-2002.

Sirianni is also fond of Toledo’s Jason Candle, who just accepted the job at UConn. Candle was a fellow wide receiver alongside Sirianni at Mount Union.

Safe to say Campbell might get a few more visits from Sirianni now that they are both in the Keystone State. Sirianni took the time to talk about Campbell and Candle getting new gigs this week as the Eagles prepared for the Los Angeles Chargers Monday night.

“When you’re coaching football yourself, you’re not a fan of anybody really. And so you lose that ability to be a fan,” Sirianni said. “But [Washington & Jefferson College], I’m checking their score every week for my brother. Mount Union, I’ve checked them every week. I would always check my nephew’s football team, Southwestern. Always check Iowa State and Toledo. But I got to switch Toledo now, too, because Jason Candle got the job over there at UConn. Yeah, I think the guy who probably doesn’t get enough credit, now he does from us, is we all went to school at Mount Union. 

“For the various degrees that we went for, we didn’t know we’d leave in a doctorate degree of football coaching. So [former Mount Union head coach] Larry Kehres deserves a lot of credit for all of us being in these positions right now.”

Campbell went 72-55 in 10 seasons at Iowa State and was 35-15 at Toledo from 2011-15, giving him a career mark of 107-70. Funny enough, Candle took over for Campbell and 2016 and went 81-44 through this season.

“Really excited to be able to take a drive down there and talk football with him even more,” Sirianni said. “We can do it on our phones, but now I can go watch a spring practice or something like that. If the rules allow you to. I don’t know how that actually is. Really looking forward to watching him, and yeah, I just think he’s a great football coach.”

Iowa State then came calling in 2016, and Campbell built the program up and became its all-time winningest coach with 72 victories. He had five seasons with at least eight wins, including an 8-4 mark this past year.

The Cyclones’ best season under his watch came in 2024 when they went 11-3 and made the Big 12 Championship, where they fell to Arizona State. It marked their second appearance in the conference title game under Campbell’s leadership.