Page 46 - Toledo Football Media Guide - 2012

46 THE COACHES

Coach Matt Campbell

league performers, and they were joined by sopho-more center Zac Kerin.

Campbell earned national attention for his recruit-ing, as well. Rivals.com named him a “top recruiter” in 2011. Campbell was one of nine coaches from non-au-tomatic qualifying schools in the BCS to make the list, and the only one from the Mid-American Conference. Toledo’s 2010, 2011 and 2012 recruiting classes have been ranked No. 1 or No. 2 in the MAC by virtually ev-ery scouting service.

Taking Over the Helm

Campbell‘s career took a dramatic turn at the end of the 2011 regular season when Beckman left the program to take the head coaching position at Illinois. UT Athletic Director Mike O’Brien immedi-ately named Campbell the interim head coach. Three days later, O’Brien decided to remove the interim label and Campbell was introduced as Toledo’s permanent head coach.

With the Military Bowl looming in just 16 days, Campbell had to prepare his team for the game, while simultaneously gear-ing up for the 2012 recruiting battles and re-building his coaching staf.

For the Military Bowl matchup vs. Air Force, Campbell chose to remain in his normal ofensive coordinator position in

the coaches’ box and let associate head coach Louis Ayeni handle the on-feld duties. The strategy worked out perfectly, as the Rockets put up 42 points against a solid Falcon defense. The game was ultimately decided by the UT defense, however, as the Rockets forced a fumble when Air Force tried for a two-point conver-sion following an apparent game-tying touchdown with just over a minute left to play.

Building Champions at Toledo

Now ofcially one game into his head coaching career, Campbell has turned his attention to making Toledo the premier football program in the Mid-Amer-ican Conference.

He and his new staf made a good step in that di-rection with a 2012 recruiting class that ranked as one of the best in the MAC. He begins his frst full season at

the helm knowing that expectations will be high for his team.

“We’re a good program right now but we want to be a great program,” said Campbell. “There are a lot of things we haven’t done yet. I think that at Toledo your goals and expectations are always going to be play-ing for a MAC Championship, winning a bowl game and getting the team GPA to as close to 3.0 as pos-sible. Those goals have been set in stone for the last three years, and it’s something we still aspire to.”

Campbell saidhewill usemuch that hehas learned frompast head coaches as he builds his own program at UT. In particular, he plans to keep many concepts that Beckman began upon his arrival in 2009.

“I give Coach Beckman a lot of credit,” said Campbell. “When we frst got here (in 2009), we spent a lot of hours early on developing the foundation of this program. We worked really hard to change the academic standards of our team and to change the image of our program in the community. That hasn’t changed, and it won’t change. We will continue to require players to sit in the frst two rows of class. We will continue to be involved in the community.We will continue to do the kinds of team-building activities that motivate players and help them become more of a family.”

Campbell and senior running back Adonis Thomas share a laugh at the 2011 Military Bowl luncheon.