Tony Rojas picked a side and said it out loud when Penn State’s coaching search got messy. When James Franklin was fired after a 3-3 start, he publicly backed interim head coach Terry Smith for the permanent job. So when the Nittany Lions hired Matt Campbell, the question was if the LB would stick around. He was already linked to Miami transfer tumors and nothing felt certain. Now he’s back and he’s explaining why he returned for the new head coach.

“I think he just holds a lot of us accountable, especially leaders and the guys coming back from Iowa State and here,” Tony Rojas said of Matt Campbell. “And I think that’s just one of the biggest things that we lacked (for) a couple years, is accountability and just being on the guys as a coach. … Just not letting anything slip compared to the past years in a good way… I feel like he’s just more on us, whether that’s academics and whatnot. He doesn’t let anything lack and I think he’s holding us accountable.”

That’s a returning star LB drawing a line between the past and the present. Even coming off a torn ACL, Tony Rojas is in position to be one of the best LBs in the country in 2026. Before everything went sideways last season, he was playing at that level. Then came the injury that changed the season. It started in the heartbreaking double-overtime loss to Oregon. He suffered a quad contusion that made it tough to run. He said he followed the training staff’s plan, was told running would help it loosen up. That Tuesday, with his quad wrapped, he took the first rep of practice and tore his ACL.

From there, the season spiraled. Penn State went 3-6 without him. The defense slipped and Tony Rojas had to watch it all from the sideline. That’s when he went public backing Terry Smith and he has good reason to. 

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“Just being a leader myself, just having my voice out there, and not really being scared, it was something for the better,” Rojas said. “And I knew having him back, whatever position it would be, would help us a lot. And I wasn’t really scared [to have] my voice out there.”

If Tony Rojas felt burned or ignored by the hire of Matt Campbell, he had an exit. Instead, he stayed and now he’s talking about cultural repair. He flatly says things are different under the new head coach. One of the biggest changes is that the roster of roughly 100 players has been split into eight small groups. Leadership council members drafted the teams, intentionally mixing position groups. Each week, those teams earn or lose points based on class attendance, timeliness, and other day-to-day responsibilities. And the losing group cleans the facility at 5 a.m. on Wednesday.

Oklahoma State transfer Armstrong Nnodim knows how that feels. His group already had to do it once.

“It just shows that it takes everybody to win,” he said. “One person could be doing everything right, but as soon as one person does something wrong, the whole team fails.”

That’s the kind of peer accountability Tony Rojas says was missing. He even admitted Penn State “hasn’t been the best academically” in recent years and Matt Campbell is attacking that head-on. OL Cooper Cousins said coaches are more open, more willing to have players walk into the office and talk ball. Tackles Garrett Sexton and Anthony Donkoh described a more relaxed building at Lasch.

“Whatever pressure that we had last year is not there,” Donkoh said. “We’re just here to play ball and to really have fun again.”

Football isn’t the only area Matt Campbell is smoothening out though. 

Culture reset in Happy Valley under Matt Campbell 

Football aside, Penn State’s involvement in the community has ticked up too. At Thon Explorers, players continued to mingle with Four Diamonds families. Some donated NIL money to Thon, thanks to an initiative started by DE Max Granville. Matt Campbell promised to double those donations. Then there’s community service where the players visited elementary schools with packed lunches. 

“That wasn’t really a thing,” Tony Rojas said. “I really didn’t do that at all the past couple of years I’ve been here. Coach Campbell really emphasizes not just focus on football, but stuff off the field… I’ve never really been associated with a lot of community service, but I have been recently. I think that bonds us together.”

Rojas will likely miss most of spring ball. He says he’s ahead of schedule and expects to be 100% by summer. And now he’s endorsing Matt Campbell’s culture shift in clear terms. If he’s right about accountability returning to Penn State, the 2026 Nittany Lions will feel different inside the building. And that’s where real turnarounds start.