Iowa State hires Jimmy Rogers as coach after losing Matt Campbell to Penn State
Iowa State has already found its replacement for Penn State-bound football coach Matt Campbell.
The school announced Friday night that it hired Washington State coach Jimmy Rogers, who just completed his first regular season with the Cougars. Rogers was previously at South Dakota State, where he won the 2023 FCS national championship.
Iowa State’s announcement came only about an hour after news broke that Campbell agreed to a deal with Penn State, which had not yet been formally announced when Iowa State sent its news release.
Welcome Home, Coach Rogers!https://t.co/fwSe6HX0Kf pic.twitter.com/5g2ZQaFdAK
— Iowa State Football (@CycloneFB) December 6, 2025
Rogers, 38, went 6-6 this season at Wazzu after South Dakota State’s 27-3 run in 2023-24. A former Jackrabbits linebacker, he spent 10 seasons on staff there before ascending to head coach and serving as defensive coordinator for SDSU’s 2022 national title season. Those teams were led by quarterback Mark Gronowski, who became Iowa’s starter this season.
Rogers overlapped at South Dakota State with Iowa State men’s basketball coach T.J. Otzelberger from 2016 to 2019.
“One of the first people I called (Friday) morning when I was making the decision was T.J. Otzelberger, because T.J. knows him and worked with him,” Iowa State athletic director Jamie Pollard told reporters. “T.J. had no idea I had been doing all this. I just flat out asked T.J., ‘OK, tell me.’ And he said, ‘If (Rogers) will come, take him.’”
Pollard said he first met Rogers several years ago at an event in Austin, Texas, organized by his agent, Thayer Evans.
“The first time I met him, he said to me, ‘How do I become the head coach at Iowa State University?’” said Pollard. “I told him, you’re probably going to need to go one more level (up) before you get here. And we stayed in contact. When I asked him why he was going to Washington State, he said, ‘It was because you told me I needed to go to the next level.’”
Rogers faces a tall task succeeding Campbell, who is Iowa State’s winningest coach. He went 72-55 (.567) over 10 seasons, reaching the Big 12 championship game in 2020 and 2024. The 2024 squad went 11-3, the first double-digit win season in school history.
Washington State, which lost its power-conference status when the Pac-12 splintered in 2023, has lost its coach to a Power 4 school in back-to-back seasons. Rogers replaced Jake Dickert, who went to Wake Forest this year.
