Peterson: Predictable Matt Campbell chatter is starting early this season

AMES, Ia. — The only takeaway about mostly nonsensical Matt Campbell-Florida State dart-throwing is that Silly Season has started early. It is upon us — and it started when the Seminoles canned Willie Taggart last Sunday.

We know the drill:

Power Five coaching position opens.

Reporters and columnists form legitimate candidate lists.

Social media worshippers spread as gospel stuff they’ve heard third- or fourth-hand

Some betting service — like betonline.ag — comes up with odds regarding who’s going where.

Someone mentions Matt Campbell.

It goes viral, and you know the rest.

It’s happened since the program-changing Campbell came to Ames after the 2015 season. He’s been mentioned at the NFL level, too, so now that Florida State fired Taggart, don’t be shocked if others follow.

It’s about getting a head start on finding successors, and everything that goes along with it.

In Campbell’s case, everyone wants a bright and enthusiastic coach. Everyone knows how he’s turned the Cyclones into a program than can beat almost anyone, and the above-board and hard-working ways in which he’s done it.

You’d be dumb not to mention Campbell on Power Five coaching vacancy lists. Some might consider it disrespectful if you didn’t, this rite of fall in which Matt Campbell here or there persists sometimes to the point of the absurd.

Even long before the Bob Stoops to Florida State speculation gathered momentum Tuesday, my hunch that Iowa State’s coach to Florida State after the 2019 season would be as surprising as the team Campbell coaches not playing in a third bowl game in a row after the Nov. 30 game at Kansas State.

Florida State?

Campbell already coaches at a better place, he’s on the same page as his boss, his fans adore him, facilities are being upgraded to the tune of $90 million, and he’s built the foundation to a program that’s good enough to be mentioned in the same breath as Big 12’s big-dawgs.

“Iowa State is one of those team that’s made some big-time improvements,” said Oklahoma coach Lincoln Riley, whose eighth-ranked Sooners host the Cyclones at 7 p.m. Saturday.

I’ve always written that Iowa State football fans needn’t worry about Campbell going to another college unless Ohio State, Michigan State, Penn State or Notre Dame become open. Maybe USC, too.

The fourth-season Cyclones coach already turned down a handful of NFL opportunities to chat. He didn’t even want to be involved when Arkansas and Tennessee hired new coaches.

I recall what Campbell told me during an office chat last summer. Of course, one of the topics was about handling the annual ritual of the college coaching name game.

“You have success, and everybody wants to move you along and work you through,” Campbell told me. “That’s never even remotely why I got into this.

“My goal was never to become a Division I football coach; I didn’t aspire to be that. At one point, I was like, 'Man, I want to be the head coach at a place like my alma mater — Mount Union.'”

Campbell makes $3.5 million on a contract that expires in December 2023. It’s worth $22.5 million through the duration and includes a $6 million buyout. That price is steep, but not deal-breaking steep, for the level of job that he might — emphasis on might — someday entertain.

But not today. Not Florida State.

“We have so much more to do here,” he said during our summer one-on-one. “We’re close, but we have so many areas to grow.”

Area to grow No. 1: Win consecutive games at Oklahoma for the first time in school history.

You remember what happened in 2017, right? Iowa State played at Oklahoma, four or so days after Kyle Kempt abruptly replaced Jacob Park as Iowa State’s quarterback.

The Cyclones won 38-31 against the Sooners and eventual Heisman Trophy winner Baker Mayfield in a game that will forever be known as the game that changed Iowa State’s football culture.

More areas to grow: Eventually be good enough to reach the Big 12 championship game, the College Football Playoff, and a New Year’s Six bowl. Finish a season among the Top 10, which has never been accomplished at Iowa State, but first ...

Continue upgrading the program with a victory Saturday at Oklahoma.

“Winning and beating an opponent like this is a great challenge,” Campbell said Tuesday. “I’d talked a lot about when we got here about building an Iowa State football program. Until you start to put some proof to who you wanted to be and what you wanted to become – those are just words.”

Those words became reality on that October day in Norman, Oklahoma.

Words about Campbell and Florida State, however, are just that.

They’re just words.

Iowa State columnist Randy Peterson has been writing for the Des Moines Register for parts of five decades. Reach him at rpeterson@dmreg.com, 515-284-8132, and on Twitter at @RandyPete. No one covers the Cyclones like the Register. Subscribe today at Des Moines Register.com/Deal to make sure you never miss a moment.