• Penn State has hired Matt Campbell as its new head football coach.
• Campbell is seen as a stable, culture-building coach with a history of overachieving at Iowa State.
• He is expected to benefit from Penn State's larger budget and resources compared to his previous roles.

Penn State football, it turns out, just may have hired the best leader available, at the right time.

The best fit for it.

The guy who is being valued even more, as he should be, because of being hired at the end of this cycle − after athletic director Pat Kraft and university officials reportedly whiffed on bigger, flashier, more coveted candidates.

Matt Campbell does offer the best possibilities for a program that needs an anchor at the top, as much as any time.

Just when the team and its former head head coach stumbled badly under national championship pressure ... when the hiring replacement search seemed to be wandering to the point of dysfunction and failure ... and when the Nittany Lions' present (their unstable, wavering roster) and their future (gutted recruiting classes) were slipping badly.

Campbell should be great here, now, because he offers the kind of coaching combination Penn State should have focused on from the start: He's a proven, no-nonsense, culture-builder and overachieving winner. He knows the region − he grew up, played and coached in Ohio.

And he oozes stability (he's won consistently at Big 12 after-thought Iowa State), loyalty (he turned down better college and NFL jobs to stay in Ames for a decade) and also untapped potential, which is key.

He even will have, critically enough, Penn State's beloved, top lieutenant to help smooth his transition.

Because we probably have not seen, yet, the best work Campbell can do.

He succeeded, admirably so, as one of the nation's youngest head coaches at Toledo. He took on the challenge of raising up perennially struggling Iowa State and has flourished, considering the obstacles. He led the Cyclones to their first double-digit victory season in school history just last year. He earned Big 12 coach-of-the-year honors three times.

He's succeeded, in a sense, against the odds. He consistently produced eight-win seasons at a school without tradition, a weak recruiting footprint and severely limited resources. Penn State's athletic budget dwarfs Iowa State − for things like paying for coaches, players and facilities.

Penn State football: A Matt Campbell fit vs. Marcus Freeman, Kalen DeBoer, Mike Elko

We will finally get to see what Campbell can do with more, with top-tier resources in a Power 4 program.

His consistent winning at Iowa State, the way he's developed players in Ames and for the NFL and his apparent straight-shooting, tough-love methods all ring positively. While he's not a national hot-board coaching star like Notre Dame's Marcus Freeman, Alabama's Kalen DeBoer or Texas A&M's Mike Elko − reportedly Kraft's top, longshot hiring choices − he may prove just as successful at Penn State.

Because Kraft and Penn State may well provide one of college football's biggest budgets to spend for a coaching staff, high school recruits, transfers and roster retention. By all accounts, they will be more aggressive in the transfer portal and will recalibrate their method of paying current players.

Which means, Penn State doesn't necessarily need the biggest name to challenge for the national titles Kraft has been talking about since he was hired. They don't need flash, not a savior.

They need a proven winner, a culture fit who understands their methods, a coach who is still on the hungry, upside of his career.

Someone who can take advantage of all they have to provide.

Someone who can be lowkey confident and comfortable at this place in the middle of nowhere, so to speak, with all of its expectations, resources and unity-building required.

A guy like Campbell, maybe the best for now.

Frank Bodani covers Penn State football for the York Daily Record and USA Today Network. Contact him at fbodani@ydr.com and follow him on X, formerly known as Twitter, @YDRPennState.