Penn State earned some solid praise from Big Ten football coaches who believe that Matt Campbell built a sensible, competitive roster in his first season with the Nittany Lions. That the comments were made anonymously doesn't necessarily mitigate their weight.Athlon Sports conducts annual anonymous surveys of coaches across the country for its college football preview. Athlon has released the Big Ten survey, which offers some compelling internal insight from those who coach, scheme and scout.Penn State is getting some attention as a possible College Football Playoff contender, though those expectations might be cooling a bit. Still, Campbell has brought Penn State's roster a long way from the the post-Pinstripe Bowl chaos of January. The Athlon Big Ten survey includes two comments regarding Penn State. Both bring up some interesting points worth exploring. Let's dive in.The Iowa State moving van will be a net positivePenn State Nittany Lions quarterback coach Jake Waters talks with quarterback Rocco Becht during the Blue-White Spring game at Beaver Stadium. | Matthew O'Haren-Imagn Images“I thought they did really well with their personnel," one Big Ten coach told Athlon. "They obviously took a lot of Iowa State players. That made sense. They took pretty much that whole offensive staff and brought a lot of defensive players from Iowa State. That brings continuity throughout that roster. ”Campbell probably smiled at the last statement; heck, he might have even said it. A critical component to his move from Iowa State to Penn State was building a roster with which he was comfortable as a first-year coach. Campbell did so by bringing the core players he valued for several years at Iowa State.Campbell did more than bring 24 Iowa State transfers to Penn State. He made sure to blend that group with experience and potential, ready-now starters and next-year contributors. Look at quarterback, for example.Rocco Becht will be a fourth-year starter in an offense he knows instinctively. He ran it for three seasons at Iowa State and is comfortable with multiple skill-position transfers, notably receivers Chase Sowell and Brett Eskildsen and tight end Ben Brahmer. Becht also quickly became a leader at Penn State because he did that naturally at iowa State. But Campbell also brought redshirt freshman quarterback Alex Manske, who was the highest-ranked player in Iowa State's 2025 recruiting class. Clearly, the head coach considers Manske to be a contender for the starting job in 2027.Penn State's offensive continuity flows through the staff. Campbell has described coordinator Taylor Mouser's play-calling style as "fearless." Offensive line coach Ryan Clanton counterweights Campbell's calm with some bravado. Quarterbacks coach Jake Waters is a sound conduit between Campbell and the room.The Iowa State transfers will matter a little less defensively, where D'Anton Lynn is constructing his unit around different elements. For instance, the 3-3-5 base defense Campbell ran at Iowa State will be modified for Big Ten run games.Lynn began the overhaul by bringing in three defensive tackles, all of whom weigh 319 or more, from schools outside Iowa State. Two played for Lynn at UCLA, including eighth-year lineman Siale Taupaki, while the other, Oklahoma State's Armstrong Nnodim, was a standout of spring.Similarly at cornerback, Penn State will rely less on Cyclones. That's where position coach Terry Smith's return helped tremendously, as the Nittany Lions brought back five of their top cornerbacks from last season. Former Cyclones Marcus Neal Jr., Jeremiah Cooper and Jamison Patton will take control at safety, but the secondary will flow through those corners.Did Tennessee overpay for Penn State defensive talent?Penn State Nittany Lions linebacker Amare Campbell (24) returns a fumble for a touchdown against the Rutgers Scarlet Knights at SHI Stadium. | Vincent Carchietta-Imagn ImagesThis was an interesting bit of analysis about Penn State from another Big Ten coach. “I don’t necessarily know that they’re gonna be immediately good in Year 1, but I thought the three big guys who followed [former defensive coordinator] Jim Knowles to Tennessee went for way more money than I would’ve paid them if I were Penn State."I thought they made a couple of really good adds. I also thought they kept a couple of really good players that could’ve left, like [linebacker] Tony Rojas. That’s a really good player that probably could’ve gone anywhere for a lot more money than what he got at Penn State.”Virginia Tech got the most volume of Penn State transfers (11), but Tennessee might have landed the most production. Along with Knowles, the Vols pulled productive players Amare Campbell, Chaz Coleman, Dejuan Lane and Xavier Gilliam. Campbell and Coleman objectively were huge losses for Penn State's defense. Campbell led the team in tackles at linebacker and would have been the top returning defensive player in TFLs. Coleman made three sacks in nine games and would have anchored the defensive ends.Amare Campbell felt that he was being "undervalued" at Penn State and chose Tennessee's offer instead. But after bringing four linebackers with him from Iowa State, Matt Campbell rightly prioritized retaining Rojas over Amare Campbell, even though Rojas is returning from a torn ACL.As the anonymous coach noted, the market for Rojas was more intense. Penn State Athletic Director Pat Kraft acknowledged in his late-season meeting with team leaders, audio of which was leaked before Campbell was hired. Now, is the Big Ten coach right that Penn State won't be "immediately good"? The Nittany Lions certainly have some stress points, not the least of which is quarterback depth behind Becht. But Penn Stae doesn't necessarily have to be immediately good to be a playoff contender, especially considering that schedule. But those anonymous Big Ten coaches got more right than wrong about Penn State.Sign up to our free Penn State Nittany Lions newsletter and follow us on social media.Add us as a preferred source on GoogleFollow