Iowa State’s Matt Campbell emphasizing ‘The Art of Winning’

AMES — Every football season, Iowa State head coach Matt Campbell selects a book he considers perfectly suited to his team.

So what’s Campbell’s pick for a Cyclones team coming off its first ever 11-win season?

“The Art of Winning: Lessons from My Life in Football,” by six-time Super Bowl winning coach Bill Belichick.

“(It) has been awesome,” said Campbell, whose team wrapped up its 10th fall practice recently and held its first scrimmage on Saturday. “It’s probably perfect for this team.”

Why?

“It’s not just (about) football,” Campbell said. “(It’s about) how do you build sustainable success and what’s it look like?”

Campbell and his staff are deeply embedded in the process of figuring that out. ISU is roughly two weeks from hopping a plane to Dublin, Ireland, in advance of a Week 0 matchup with Big 12 rival Kansas State in the Aug. 23 Aer Lingus College Football Classic.

It’s a high stakes game for obvious reasons — and the USA Today college football coaches’ preseason poll points to it being a close and tense one. The Wildcats are slotted 20th in the poll, which was released on Monday. The Cyclones are tied for 21st with Texas A&M — and one of five Big 12 teams in the Top 25. All of which means nothing, of course, but does drizzle a dash of intrigue on a game that may or may not portend what’s to come for Campbell’s program this season.

“I think you’re still not gonna know where this team is ’til you get to the midpoint of the season,” Campbell said. “I think with all the uniqueness of the travel, it’s probably not Week 0 I’m concerned with, it’s the weeks after — and into the early part of this football season, it’s gonna probably showcase how can this group prepare mentally equally to physically. I think those are where all the great challenges are gonna lie.”

Campbell’s not trying to say the matchup with the Wildcats isn’t important. Far from it. He’s simply adopting a wide-angle approach to the Cyclones’ potential, and whether they win or lose in Dublin, that will remain a work in progress.

“It may be Week 0 for everybody else, but it’s still Week 1 for us,” he said. “So I don’t think that has holistically shifted how we’ve gone through fall camp. This is still a huge week of Iowa State versus Iowa State. I think next week, we use the early part of next week to clean up Iowa State versus Iowa State. Where are we internally?”

At this point that would be in flux, but in a good way. Campbell said the Cyclones are the deepest they’ve ever been across all position groups, which is why he’s made shoring up mental toughness a preseason priority as his team seeks to produce its eighth winning season in the past nine years.

“Every day right now is a great opportunity to kind of hone in those habits and those skills that it takes to get up every day, not feeling great, repetitive practice, highly competitive, and show up,” Campbell said. “The great thing is, right now, if you don’t show up, you’re gonna get exposed. I don’t know if we’ve always had enough talent at one time to be able to maybe execute that way, where sometimes you can maybe get away with it. Well, you can’t hide on the videotape right now. You’re gonna get exposed.”

That’s true for established stars such as quarterback Rocco Becht, cornerback Jontez Williams and nose guard Domonique Orange. It’s true for highly-touted transfers such as wide receivers Chase Sowell and Xavier Townsend, and defensive back Tre Bell. It’s true for up-and-coming young players pressing for playing time on all fronts — so “The Art of Winning” is rippling through the Cyclones’ program.

But can they master it?

That question remains unanswered, of course, and it will likely take a while for a complete answer to emerge.

“There’s been a lot of really good intensity and physicality so far through fall camp,” Campbell said. “I guess the challenge will be, can that continue on? That will probably be a great indicator of where this team is early in the football season.”

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