When Iowa State athletic director Jamie Pollard lured coach Matt Campbell from Toledo before the 2016 season, he took somewhat of a gamble—Campbell had won prodigiously with the Rockets, but at 36 was still one of college football’s youngest head coaches.
The Ohio native proceeded to rewrite expectations for football at the long-suffering university, going 72–55 and cracking the AP Top 10 in three separate seasons. All but two of his teams went to bowl games, and half of the Cyclones’ six bowl wins are his.
