{"id":628910,"date":"2026-05-07T13:08:09","date_gmt":"2026-05-07T13:08:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/628910\/"},"modified":"2026-05-07T13:08:09","modified_gmt":"2026-05-07T13:08:09","slug":"report-matt-campbell-initially-agreed-to-be-detroit-lions-coach","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/628910\/","title":{"rendered":"Report: Matt Campbell initially agreed to be Detroit Lions coach"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup _1teeyfa8 ls9zuh1\">In 2021, Campbell initially agreed to coach the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/nfl\/team\/_\/name\/det\/detroit-lions\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Detroit Lions<\/a> before changing his mind; the Lions hired Dan Campbell instead,<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup _1teeyfa8 ls9zuh1\">\u201cLeaving Ames wasn\u2019t something that I was looking to do or wanting to do,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">This is the latest development in a story that had conflicting reports almost immediately after Detroit hired Dan Campbell.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">At the time, there was certainly a lot of smoke regarding Matt Campbell and the Detroit Lions. There is no debate as to whether he interviewed for the job\u2014he did\u2014but what happened after has been disputed.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Back during Dan Campbell\u2019s introductory press conference, team president Rod Wood avoided questions about the team\u2019s interest in Matt Campbell.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">\u201cI\u2019m not going to comment on any college coaches,\u201d Wood said. \u201cI think we talked to a couple of you about that out of respect for their current position and recruiting. I\u2019m not going to say whether we interviewed a college coach or whether we didn\u2019t or whether we extended an offer. I\u2019ll just leave it at, \u2018No comment,\u2019 on any college coaches.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Of course, the details of this coaching search hardly matter at this point. Dan Campbell has gone on to help build a winner in Detroit, amassing a 48-36-1 record (2-2 in the playoffs) despite starting his career 4-19-1 in his first 24 games in Detroit. He\u2019s the first Lions coach to get Detroit to the NFC Championship in three decades, and under Campbell, the Lions set a franchise record for wins in a season with 15 (2024). He already sits fourth in Lions coaching history in wins (48), just 18 behind Wayne Fontes, and his .571 win percentage also ranks fourth in team history.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Meanwhile, Matt Campbell stayed at Iowa State through the 2025 season before opting to take the Penn State job back in December.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In 2021, Campbell initially agreed to coach the Detroit Lions before changing his mind; the Lions hired Dan&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":628911,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[63],"tags":[271974,4992,349,99],"class_list":["post-628910","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nfl","tag-detroit-lions-coaching-news-and-rumors","tag-detroit-lions-news","tag-nfl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/628910","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=628910"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/628910\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/628911"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=628910"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=628910"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=628910"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}