Iowa State's Campbell 'laying rock-solid foundation' through early recruiting

AMES — Matt Campbell hasn't had the most regular sleeping patterns in the last five weeks.

In truth, the Iowa State football coach's sleeping habits might be somewhat regular, but the number of hours he's been able to enjoy recently hasn't been high. That's OK with him, though.

Campbell knows how important the last several weeks, plus the next month, will be in his recruiting efforts as he and his staff assemble the first class in a new era of ISU football.

'We're fighting an uphill battle a little bit, but I think it's a battle in my mind that you love the competition of too,' Campbell said. 'The newness and excitement (of it) and really just trying to lay a rock-solid foundation to what we want to do.'

The 36-year-old coach talks about his process and desire to be an attitude and effort based program, but Campbell's prior head-coaching experience also gave him the means to quickly formulate his recruiting plan. He spent the first days on the job in the ISU 'war room' with his newly assembled staff piecing together a list of names that would be targeted early on.

Campbell expressed a desire to thoroughly recruit areas within a four-hour radius of Ames, plus start developing relationships with high schools throughout the state of Iowa — which he spent time visiting during lunch breaks in his first week in Ames. He has solid recruiting connections in Ohio — his home state — and Pennsylvania, but isn't limiting himself to only areas in which he has strong ties.

Iowa State has also recruited in states like Michigan, Florida, California and Missouri, but Campbell said recruiting is just the doorway to what he hopes to do once he secures players in his class.

'Equal to recruiting what I would say is one of the things we did a great job of at Toledo with not only recruiting them, but developing them,' Campbell said. 'That development piece is critical as well. How do you develop that player once he's in your program.'

Iowa State signed five junior college players at the mid-year period this month plus Rhode Island graduate transfer offensive lineman Tyler Catalina and early high-school graduate quarterback Zeb Noland from Georgia. According to allcyclones.com, the Cyclones have received 12 verbal commitments since Campbell was hired, hold a class of 17 commitments and are ranked No. 64 nationally by Scout.

'I think the biggest thing is identifying our needs, making sure we don't compromise in recruiting,' Campbell said of his philosophy. 'We're not going to take guys just to take them. I don't think that works and ultimately that's not fair to the kid and that's not fair to the future of our program. So making sure whoever we do take, we really believe can help and can impact the future of our football program.'

Campbell has also nearly completed his coaching staff, with only a quarterbacks coach and defensive coordinator that have yet to be formally announced. FootballScoop.com reported Wednesday that Jim Hofher, the assistant head coach and receivers coach at Nevada, would join the Cyclones as quarterbacks coach while Campbell said two weeks ago he was nearing an agreement with a defensive coordinator.

What the rest of Campbell's staff has done in his short time in Ames has separated itself from any previous ISU staff in that they've all embraced social media. Every ISU assistant operates a personal Twitter account and has been active in creating ISU specific hashtags — #AStormIsBrewing and #SoundTheSirens are a couple — to further their football brand.

Tweets from https://twitter.com/CRGazetteSports/lists/isu-football-staff

'(Recruiting coordinator Alex Golesh) kind of heads up that whole department with what should you be doing, what's appropriate and what's professional,' said offensive coordinator Tom Manning. 'We're always going to stay on that path and it's fun. Honestly it's a fun way to stay involved with your recruits. Recruiting is still, in coaching, about relationships. Any way you can foster that relationship is a good thing.'

Social media is certainly an example of the new directions Campbell wants to take the program, but more game-day changes could be on the horizon as well. Campbell didn't want to get specific about what those changes would be, but knows there will be conversations between himself and athletics director Jamie Pollard in the offseason that will produce some ideas.

'I'm certainly very traditionalist in a multitude of different ways,' Campbell said. 'But I'm also a realist in today's world of football, especially young kids and the ability to enhance your imagination and enhance your brand through uniforms is awesome. I think kids love it, I love it and trying to create that excitement I think is something that is really exciting to me.'

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