Peterson: 2023 is Matt Campbell's best season as Iowa State football coach
Matt Campbell’s best season as Iowa State's football coach? Without question. Sunday’s selection to the Liberty Bowl signed, sealed and delivered that Cyclones football is back on the map − and possibly for years to come.
That’s how significant this turnaround has been – from winning just one conference game to 6-3 in the Big 12 in the span of just a year. From 4-8 overall and packing away jerseys at this time last season to 7-5 and preparing to face Memphis in the Dec. 29 Liberty Bowl (2:30 p.m., ESPN) at Memphis, Tenn.
More: Iowa State football learns its bowl destination: the Liberty Bowl vs. Memphis
That’s heavy stuff, especially considering all the freshmen and sophomores who received their first taste of college football. So to revisit a story line about which I wrote earlier this season ... Yes, it is possible to mix winning now and preparing for the future.
Darn right it is. Campbell, his staff and the players they coach certainly proved that. A Liberty Bowl return (where Iowa State beat hometown Memphis in 2017) added the exclamation point.
The media pegged Iowa State for 10th in the 14-team Big 12, and let’s revisit how that went. Voters had Texas and Kansas State, followed by Oklahoma and Texas Tech, then TCU and Baylor, and Oklahoma State and UCF, then Kansas and Iowa State, followed by BYU, Houston, Cincinnati and West Virginia.
Instead, Iowa State tied for fourth – behind Texas, Oklahoma State and Oklahoma, and tied with West Virginia and Kansas.
No one besides Iowa State made a five-win jump in conference wins.
No one fielded as young a team as the Cyclones did.
Texas was the only other squad to win four conference road games.
But I’m not finished.
Go back to May, and no Big 12 team lost five starters during a gambling investigation.
More: Peterson: A look inside Iowa State's We Will Collective and the transfer portal season
“For this team," Campbell said, "with the adversity that it faced almost every step of the way, the ability to not only to respond to it, but growing it better and making the strides we’ve been able to make, are really exciting. It’s huge for us.”
This 7-5 regular-season reversal from 4-8 in 2022 included four new assistant coaches. It included Nate Scheelhaase, 32, moving from running backs and receivers coach to becoming a first-time offensive coordinator.
“Youth is irrelevant,” Campbell said during a recent media session. “At the end of the day, it’s can you lead people?
“That’s what I really feel like about head coach or coordinator at this level, or any level, man, you’ve got to be able to lead people. There’s really good leaders, and there’s not so great leaders.
“Nate is a great leader of people.”
Fast forward from there to Sept. 16, on the road against Ohio University – the head-scratching 10-7 loss in which Iowa State averaged just 1.7 yards per rushing attempt.
“We didn’t come here with the urgency we needed, right off the bat,” quarterback Rocco Becht said after the game.
Iowa State was 1-2 after that wake-up call of an embarrassment. The Cyclones went 6-3 after that.
More: Iowa State football's Rocco Becht is Big 12's offensive freshman of the year
“Honestly, since May, this group has been nothing short of phenomenal,” Campbell said. “We had the highest GPA in the history of our school in the spring − over 3.2 cumulative. We faced adversity in May. We came back and had an incredible summer.”
Best coaching job? For my money – yes. Here are two other possibilities.
2017: A two-way player, four quarterbacks, a rare eight-win season
And, of course, a selection to the Liberty Bowl, but I’m not done: Iowa State’s first bowl since the 2012 Liberty against Tulsa also became the Cyclones’ first bowl win since a 2009 Insight Bowl win against Minnesota.
Second season since inheriting a team that lost four times by 20 points or more. ... Winning at No. 3 Oklahoma for the first time since 1990 ... All-American all-purpose selection Joel Lanning played quarterback and linebacker ... Kyle Kempt, Jacob Park and Zeb Noland also shared time behind center.
Yes, that season was truly outstanding.
More: Join Randy Peterson's Iowa State Cyclones text-message group
2020: COVID, bouncing back from a season-opening loss against Louisiana, and turning negative into positive
That’s been one of Campbell’s big talking points since taking over the program in 2016 – how you respond to adversity.
The Cyclones’ special teams couldn’t have played more horribly than they played in that season-opening loss in an empty Jack Trice Stadium. Kickoff return for a touchdown. Punt return for a touchdown. The sky’s falling.
Wrong.
“Sadly in life, you sometimes learn your biggest lessons through adversity,” Campbell has said a few times since I’ve known him.
They responded with eight victories in nine games after the season opener. They responded with a Big 12 Championship Game berth, and a victory against Oregon in the New Year’s Six Fiesta Bowl.
That season was very good, as well.
Which brings me to the team with another Liberty Bowl game against Memphis
Campbell compared 2023 to the 2017 bowl campaign – primarily the success after his 3-9 Iowa State coaching debut.
“You never want to waste a good failure,” he said Sunday, referring to turning 4-8 into 7-5. “Anytime you don’t reach your full potential brings you back to the drawing board of trying to close the gaps to get yourself back to where you want to be.
“Anytime you don’t reach the potential – especially if you want to be great – it motivates you.”
That’s the turning adversity into positive piece he talks about. That’s called not letting what happened in the month of May define the team. Not letting the head-scratching loss at Ohio turn into one loss after another.
“Validation for what I know coach Campbell and his staff and his players do on a daily basis,” athletics director Jamie Pollard said during Sunday’s bowl announcement press conference. “You knew it was there. The coaches knew it was there. There was no magic. It’s just doing what we do.”
What they did was part of Campbell’s best performance in eight seasons as a Cyclone.
Iowa State columnist Randy Peterson is in his 51st year writing sports for the Des Moines Register. Reach him at rpeterson@dmreg.com, on X @RandyPete, and at DesMoinesRegister.com/CyclonesTexts
This article originally appeared on Des Moines Register: Peterson: Matt Campbell's best Iowa State coaching season? Heck yes
