Matt Campbell hires four new assistants

Tom Manning will be coaching the offensive line coach for Iowa State. He was one of four assistant coaches that new-ISU coach Matt Campbell hired on Tuesday. 

Luke Manderfeld

New ISU football coach Matt Campbell been busy ever since he was handed the head coaching job over the weekend. 

On Tuesday, Iowa State announced four new additions to Campbell’s staff, which puts his official staff a five coaches. 

On Monday at his introductory press conference, Campbell announced his first hire, running back coach Louis Ayeni. Ayeni coached with Campbell until 2014, when he left for Iowa State to work with former ISU coach Paul Rhoads. 

Campbell named Tom Manning, Alex Golesh, D.K. McDonald and John Kuceyeski to his staff. All four of them had experience coaching with Campbell at Toledo. Three of them were on staff at Toledo this season. 

Toledo still has a bowl game to play after finishing its season 9-2. All of the coaches, except Manning, are expected to coach in the final game, the Toledo Blade reported. 

Campbell has also reportedly offered to a number of Toledo commits during the past few days as well. 

Manning will coach the offensive line for the Cyclones. He spent four seasons with Toledo, from 2012-15, and was part of Campbell’s three nine-win teams in the last four years that centered around the running game. 

“I can’t tell you how excited I am to be here at Iowa State with Coach Campbell,” Manning said in a statement. “Hearing about Coach Campbell’s experiences at Iowa State, I knew this was also the right place for our family. The people, you can tell, make the university. That’s the thing that we are excited about the most. Working with the people.”

Golesh will take over the tight ends and recruiting coaching position. Golesh is the only one of the new additions that didn’t serve under Campbell at Toledo. He coached alongside Campbell from 2009-11 before leaving to coach at Illinois.

Golesh worked with the running backs for the past two seasons at Illinois and helped the Fighting Illini’s running back Josh Ferguson become one of seven running backs in the FBS with more than 700 rushing yards and 400 receiving yards. 

I had the opportunity to work with Alex at Toledo before he left for Illinois, and he laid a great foundation to the talent we had there,” Campbell said in a statement. “He has emerged nationally as one of the great recruiters right now and we are lucky to have him here at Iowa State.”

McDonald, who will be coaching cornerbacks, is Campbell’s first staff addition on the defensive side of the ball. Toledo’s offense led the Mid-American Conference in points allowed, conceding 21.1 points per game. 

Kuceyeski will be the director of recruiting and spent the last three seasons as Toledo’s director of football operations and director of high school relations. 

“I couldn’t be more thrilled to be here in Ames with Coach Campbell,” Kuceyeski said in a statement. “Ames is such a great place to recruit to. Our staff already has a great camaraderie and it’s going to be a special journey here the next few months and obviously years to come.”