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BIG 12 CONFERENCE FOOTBALL MEDIA DAYSJuly 16, 2018Matt CampbellFrisco, Texas THE MODERATOR: We're now joined by the Iowa State coach, Matt Campbell. Coach, welcome, your thoughts about the upcoming season? MATT CAMPBELL: First and foremost, happy to be here to represent Iowa State athletics, our great university and really of fortunate to come with four great representatives from our university on the offensive side, David Montgomery our junior running back our senior quarterback Kyle Kempt, on the defensive side Brian Peavy and our defensive lineman, Raymond Lima, for building Iowa State's football program and excited to have those four with me. For myself, I was anxious to watch the response of our football team coming back in January from some of the lessons we learned from a year ago and for the last seven months it's been fun since January to where we are today to watch the leadership of our football team and the growth of our football program continue to grow in a positive direction. I know like every coach here we're excited to get to 2018 football season underway. But proud of our football team and any questions you may have from my end I look forward to answering. Q. Only one returning offensive lineman coming in you said for the first time you thought you looked like a real offensive line. So I wanted you to address that and addressing the loss of Tom Manning and Tom's future with Indianapolis? MATT CAMPBELL: Sure, first of all the offensive line position. One of the great challenges for our program in general to make a step forward has really been rebuilding that offensive line. For the last two years we've had to really rebuild it from the ground up and that's not a quick fix. One of the things that is neat for us is our four guys that have started football games, Bryce Meeker who started for us at right tackle, Josh Knipfel who started all 13 games at right guard, Julian Good-Jones who started all fourteen games at center and gives us flexibility across the board and Sean Foster who started six games at left and right tackle for us last year. There are guys who have actually played for us, which is really big. It's the first time since I've been there that we've got this many guys that have experience and played and I do think you've got to play and get that experience and have some of those failures and successes so you can grow. I think that's a real positive for us, though I think it's a great challenge. This group has to prove that they've got to be willing to take the next step. Coach Manning leaving was certainly kind of twofold. Number one, he played for me. He's been a part of my coaching staff since I've been an offensive coordinator. So really proud to be honest with you was my remark when he had the opportunity that came his way in Indianapolis. Tom is a bright young man. He's a coach that coaches his players with a lot of passion and energy. So I think for Tom his future is as bright as he wants it to be. In terms of what route does he want to do. Does he want to become a position coach in the National Football League, does he want to be a head coach down the road. I think he's positioned to do any of those things. From an Iowa State standpoint we're fortunate that my background has never veered too far away from the offensive line position. Obviously that's where I was able to cut my teeth in coaching that had a similar hire in terms of Jeff Myers is what we had when Tom Manning became the offensive line coach for us at Toledo, promoting a graduate assistant to that position with Tom being the offensive coordinator the day-to-day operations fell on Jeff's shoulders. Jeff was a three-year starter at the University of Toledo, so he's been there, done that. He knows what expectations I have and what expectations are laid on that offensive line position and it's almost been a seamless transition that way. So it's great to have a guy in house that has the same core values and believes that I have of what that offensive line should look like and feel like. Q. Matt, had a question about Kyle. The fact that he came in, started mid-stream last year at OU, was so successful. What were the challenges for him to do that after so long not starting? What do you think allowed him to be so successful not only then, but throughout the rest of the season for y'all? MATT CAMPBELL: Great question. I think number one, for Kyle, you're talking a young man four and a half years of college experience in three plays prior to that, San Jose State the year before he got a couple of reps in that game and to be honest with you, what young man at quarterback is going to wait that long until he gets the opportunity to prove himself. I think that says everything we need to know about who Kyle is as a person. College football is about taking advantage of your opportunity, whenever it comes. And usually that's what defines success for a stat in his collegiate experience is when your opportunity comes are you prepared to take advantage of it? That's the one thing I've always admired about Kyle and to be honest with you it's the one thing that gave myself and our staff confidence moving forward. Kyle always prepared as if he was the starting quarterback. His preparation in detail was elite. I think that's why he had success as a stepped in as a starter and I think it's what has allowed him to continue to have success through the rest of the last season. I think that's also the reason for me that it was exciting to be able to get Kyle to come back that he was announced that he was going to get a sixth year knowing someone who represented the game of football the way Kyle does and how trusted he was by his teammates because of the work ethic that he does embody I think that was huge for Iowa State football and for our program going forward. Q. Going back to that game in Norman, you guys won, it propelled you to a good season. We got some perspective behind it. What did that victory do for your overall program not just the perception from outside but maybe the confidence and belief level inside you to go to a place like that and win? What did that go for the Cyclones? MATT CAMPBELL: I said this about Iowa State football, year one we had to learn how to believe, what does real belief look like and feel like and in year one you saw our kids grow, but they started to believe that they could win. In year two, we had to learn how to win. We learned that by obviously some successes in some football games that maybe we weren't picked to win. But you also saw it in some tough, gut-wrenching losses that we had throughout the year as well. Winning a game like we did against Oklahoma showed us and our kids that here is what it takes to be successful. These are what we're going to have to do at Iowa State to be really successful. The little things, winning in the margins. Those are truisms and if we continue to grow and to water those found additions then we're going to have a chance to continue to have success. But if we don't and if ego starts to creep in and we think we're going to win because we're better than everybody then it's going to be a tough road to hoe. I think what it did is showed us how to win and what it takes to win to be successful at Iowa State and I give our kids credit because they've bought into that and I think they understand that if we're going to push our program forward it's going to take winning in the margins for us to be successful. Q. With the new rules about red shirts, how do you anticipate viewing and just going about who you play, when you play and taking advantage of the new rules? MATT CAMPBELL: Yeah, I think for me core philosophy won't change. I've always told young men that we recruited I would rather play you too late than too early. I don't want to put you in a position that would rob us of the opportunity to be successful when you're ready to be successful. I do think that it is certainly a rule that helps the team especially like our program where you can develop these young guys in your program and maybe you get to the months of November and late October when you need some of these capable bodies and guys that have proven that they're ready to play. You can actually put them in the game and help your overall depth and your football team and your football program. I do think that's big for us. We've put a lot of thought into that, how we will continue to build our program and how we will continue to develop those young guys early in their career. But I know it's something that I think would have helped us a year ago and certainly could be a deciding factor for us moving forward as well. Q. Just based on the success that you had last season, what elements were you able to take out of that, kind of push that into your recruiting efforts this year? Are there things that you're showing kids that help you without with that? MATT CAMPBELL: Yeah, I think the biggest thing and any coach in the country when they get to a new school they're selling a vision, that's the reality of it. Until there becomes some validity to the vision they're selling, you're just selling. So I do think the one thing that's really helped us in our recruiting process now is that we can actually put some reality to this is who we are, this is what we're trying to become and this is where we're trying to go with Iowa State football. I think the thing I love about our coaching staff is we really know what we're looking for in the recruiting process, what fits us, what fits our culture and to be able now to tell those young men this is who we are and how we're going to get there, and this is where we're also trying to go. I think that's helped us. So I think just the ability to give us reality to what the vision of Iowa State football going forward is going to look like. Q. Last week Iowa State unveiled new uniforms for the 2018 season. How much mixing and matching will there be between the alternate black and cardinal and white? MATT CAMPBELL: Good question. It's been a hot topic in Ames. The reality for us and I will be the first one to tell you I'm probably the biggest uniform guy out there, but I do know that we're excited. It's a sleek new look. We will definitely mix and match. We've always done that no matter what uniforms we've worn is try to let our kids have great input into what they look like and feel like on game day. I am a big proponent of that. Q. You talk about the vision for Iowa State football and now that you're here you have the long-term extension you signed last year. What is the ceiling for this program? Have you looked at another nontraditional, non blue-blood program to model this Iowa State program off of? MATT CAMPBELL: Sure. One of my things that I love doing is studying this great game. I don't have a lot of hobbies so my biggest hobby is football. For me, I don't know what the ceiling is. I know what the next step looks like and that's to add consistency to a football program. If you want to be a real program you have to have great consistency into who you are year-in and year-out. I think that's the next step for our program and where we want to go and show that we can consistently become a winner in the Big 12 Conference. For me, studying this sport, Boise State, watching what Coach Peterson has done at Washington, what Coach Kelly did at Oregon, there are some great lessons in our sports on how to, how they've rebuilt Clemson's football program. They've been some really great lessons learned for young coaches out there if you're willing to learn and see how successful coaches have built cultures and started to sustain success that like you said, maybe not at traditional powers. Q. Matt, you have one of the best running backs in the conference back in David Montgomery, a guy that didn't have a lot of offers, I guess, coming out of high school. Did you know about him from your Ohio connections? Has he even maybe exceeded your expectations? MATT CAMPBELL: Yeah, you know, that's great story. He did have Toledo as an offer, and obviously when we got to Iowa State he was one of the first names we put on the board when we got there about, number one, are we going to take a running back? And number two, here is a guy that not only from a positional need, but stands for what we're looking for to build our football program around. David, my favorite story at Toledo is we had two running backs that were committed, but we found out about David at a senior evaluation camp going into his senior year. We went down to Cincinnati, Ohio. We traveled and were there and he literally is still to this day one of the best camps I've every seen a running back ever have. At that time we didn't have a scholarship available for a running back, but I told him we're coming back for you. I didn't know that I would be coming back from Ames, Iowa for him, and I was happy that he wanted to come here. I was happy to go back and get David. Has he exceeded my expectations? I don't think so. I think the greatest thing about David is who he is as a worker, what he is in terms of worker, attitude, commitment to be the best version of himself, that's never wavered and nothing has surprised me of why he's been able to have great success and I think there are great things to come from David Montgomery. THE MODERATOR: Thank you, Coach. Wish you the best for the season. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports   |
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