Matt Campbell's Penn State Contract Details Revealed, Bonuses, Incentives, More

Matt Campbell will be making significant money as the head coach of Penn State's football team.

Joel Haas of StateCollege.com reported Monday that Penn State's Board of Trustees unanimously finalized Campbell's new eight-year, $70.5 million contract. The deal's guaranteed base salary and supplemental compensation averages $8.8 million per year, but it features plenty of incentives.

Here is a look at the most notable of those incentives:

• One-year extension and $500,000 raise for each College Football Playoff appearance
• $1 million annual retention bonus
• Two-year extension and $1 million raise for a national championship
• $100,000 for Big Ten Coach of the Year
• $150,000 for National Coach of the Year
• $350,000 for Big Ten championship
• $250,000 for Big Ten championship game appearance
• Up to $150,000 for team academic success

This contract comes after James Franklin entered this season as the 16th-highest paid coach in the country at $8.5 million per year with Penn State, per USA Today's coaching database. Georgia's Kirby Smart ($13.3 million per year) and Ohio State's Ryan Day ($12.6 million per year) were the two highest-paid coaches.

However, LSU made Lane Kiffin the second-highest-paid coach in the country this offseason with his seven-year, $91 million contract.

That Penn State was able to land a coach as accomplished as Campbell after such a long process is notable because things did not trend in the right direction after firing Franklin in October. It seemed like the Nittany Lions were getting ahead of the coaching carousel to have their choice of the top candidates before the early signing period and transfer portal opened up, but that turned out not to be the case.

Penn State vs. Indiana

00:56

Instead, a long list of coaches were connected to Penn State but didn't take the job.

That included Kalani Sitake, Curt Cignetti, Jeff Brohm, Matt Rhule, Kalen DeBoer, Pat Fitzgerald, Eli Drinkwitz and Clark Lea, among others, all while many of the players who were previously verbally committed to Penn State's 2026 recruiting class decided to go elsewhere.

According to 247Sports' composite rankings, the Nittany Lions have the 134th-best recruiting class for the 2026 cycle.

That means they are going to have to do well when the transfer portal opens up, and having a coach like Campbell in place should help them do just that. After all, he found plenty of success at Iowa State and now joins a higher-profile program with the resources to compete for Big Ten titles.

Campbell is a three-time Big 12 Coach of the Year and went 107-70 during the course of 15 seasons at Toledo and Iowa State. His Cyclones went 11-3 last season and defeated Miami in the Pop-Tarts Bowl before going 8-4 in 2025.

Expectations will be higher at Penn State, but so will the money if he accomplishes some of the goals in place with financial incentives.