Iowa State head football coach Matt Campbell has been named to the CoSIDA Academic All-America Hall of Fame, announced by CoSIDA today.

Campbell joins three other inductees (Dr. Jen Babik, Gail Koziara Boudreaux, Marty Liquori) in the Hall of Fame Class of 2022 who will be entered into the All-America Academic Hall of Fame at the CoSIDA annual convention in Las Vegas on the 28th June.

“I am absolutely thrilled and honored to be inducted into the CoSIDA Academic All-America Hall of Fame,” said Campbell. “This prestigious Hall of Fame has a list of incredible student-athletes who have achieved academic, athletic and professional success, and to be mentioned among these incredible people is incredible. This award is special to me because I know the importance of academics. This is something we stress daily to our current student-athletes. I am incredibly honored to receive this award and would like to thank the voting committee for selecting me in this process.


The three-time Big 12 Coach of the Year and 2018 Mount Union Athletics Hall of Fame inductee has won numerous awards during his career, but today’s announcement will go down as one of his biggest achievements. Established in 1988, the CoSIDA Academic All-America Hall of Fame recognizes All-America scholars who have achieved lifelong success in their professional careers and are committed to philanthropic causes in the communities where they reside.


A total of 162 Academic All-Americas have been inducted into the Hall of Fame since its inception. Members included are sports superstars Rebecca Lobo, Steve Young, John Stockton, Danny Ainge, Bernie Kosar, Bill Walton, John Wooden, Bill Bradley and Drew Brees.


Campbell joins former Cyclone All-American and Big 12 Coach of the Year Fred Hoiberg as Iowa State-bound athletes inducted into the prestigious Hall of Fame.


Campbell is one of many outstanding football players to compete at Mount Union, a Division III powerhouse in Ohio. During his three years at Mt. Union (2000-02), Campbell lost just one football game and won three national titles (2000-02).


A two-time All-American defensively, Campbell has recorded 207 tackles, 49 TFLs and 22 sacks during his incredible career. He was also named the league’s Defensive Player of the Year twice and was a CoSIDA first-team Academic All-American in 2001. Campbell earned his bachelor’s degree in history from Mount Union in 2002.


Campbell immediately became a coach after his college career ended, and he was just as successful. After assistant stops at his alma mater, Bowling Green and Toledo, Campbell received his first head coaching job at Toledo in 2012.


He led the Rockets to three bowl games and was named MAC Coach of the Year in 2015, leading his team to a 9-2 regular season record.


After the 2015 season, Iowa State athletic director Jamie Pollard was looking for a new football coach, and Campbell was at the top of the list. Campbell listened to Pollard’s vision and accepted the manager’s job at Iowa State on November 29, 2015, immediately changing the fortunes of the Cyclone football program.

Campbell, who holds the best winning percentage in school history (55.3%), launched his rebuilding plan and laid the foundation for one of the most successful periods in football history. Cyclone.

National rankings and bowl berths became the norm under Campbell’s leadership. Campbell led the Cyclones to five straight games, a school record, annual national ranking appearances and five consecutive winning seasons.

In 2020, Campbell led the Cyclones to a first-place finish in the Big 12 regular season final standings, a berth in the Big 12 Championship Game and a New Year’s Eve Six Bowl game, all program firsts.

The 2020 Cyclone team is one of the best in school history. With a 34-17 win over Oregon in the PlayStation Fiesta Bowl, the Cyclones earned their first-ever victory in the New Year’s Six Bowl. The ISU broke the school record for conference wins (8) and tied the school mark for total wins (9).

Campbell’s recent five-year run at the ISU captured the nation’s attention with his drastic improvement, pushing Iowa State football up the national rankings and into the college football spotlight. Iowa State has appeared in the AP Top 25 poll in each of the past five seasons.

Campbell, who fostered a player-focused atmosphere with his infectious personality, holds 37.0% of Iowa State’s all-time wins over ranked teams, beating 10 top-25 ranked opponents in the nation since 2017. knocking out at least one ranked opponent in each of the past five seasons.

Campbell is the first and only coach in Iowa State history to defeat every team in the league at least once at home and on the road during his Cyclone tenure and has produced five of six winning seasons in the Iowa State in Big 12 Conference history (1996–present).

Since 2017, Iowa State has recorded 29 Big 12 wins, the league’s second-best total in that span.