With the Iowa State’s hire of former Toledo head football coach Matt Campbell, I couldn’t help but think of another notable Rocket-turned-Cyclone: women’s basketball coach Bill Fennelly. With 351 schools classified as Division 1 as of this year, two coaches making the same jump from school to school struck me as unlikely. Naturally, I was curious to see if there were any more similarities between the two. After way too much Googling- er, research, I’ve found quite a few parallels.
Pre-Toledo
Fennelly and Campbell both gained substantial experience before their stints at Toledo. In the 12 years prior to his first head-coaching job, Fennelly acted as an assistant at his alma mater, William Penn, as well as Fresno State and Notre Dame.
Campbell played football at Pittsburgh and Mount Union in college. After that, he also coached at his alma mater, Mount Union, and Bowling Green. He spent eight years as an offensive coach before getting the head coaching job at Toledo.
Toledo
Both Fennelly and Campbell spent the better part of a decade at Toledo. Fennelly spent seven years as head coach and Campbell had two years as a line coach before being promoted to head coach in 2011. Both experienced high levels of success while at Toledo. Under Fennelly, the Rockets won the MAC regular season and tournament championships three times, and appeared in the NCAA and WNIT tournaments three times each. Campbell led his teams to two MAC west division championships and a 2-1 record in bowl games, as well as qualifying for the Boca Raton bowl this year.
What It Means
Both coaches were very effective in the MAC, and were given the opportunity to move to the Big 12 (or Big 8 in Fennelly’s case; the league expanded the year after he was hired). Now, you obviously can’t assume any parity based solely on a shared origin. However, if we were to translate how much Fennelly has improved the women’s basketball program to Campbell’s future in football, Iowa State fans would be in for quite a treat.
The Future
Imagine if football under Campbell improved as rapidly as women’s basketball did after Fennelly came on board. In his second year at the school, he brought ISU to their first NCAA tournament appearance, and would return for six straight years. Campbell has already reportedly promised his players that they will be bowl eligible next year, so he’s setting his sights high.
As far as fan support goes, Campbell’s got much less work ahead of him than Fennelly did. He brought a program that averaged a handful of attendees per game to be a perennial top-five school in attendance. Football, on the other hand, broke attendance records this past year despite its somewhat disappointing season. Campbell’s task will be less about number of fans and more about reinvigorating a fan base jaded by tough season after tough season.
All in all, this is a lot of extrapolating scenarios based on unrelated coincidences (basically, both coaches being from Toledo). However, it’s fun to play with the idea and pretend that there’s some evidence behind it. All there is left to do now is wait for next football season. Luckily, we’ve got a great couple of basketball teams to tide us over until then.
