Jackson returns to Bloomington, this time as North Texas's QB
Tayven Jackson lines up against Curt Cignetti for the first time in a North Texas uniform, in an opener where Indiana also gets its two best defenders back a day before kickoff.
Cignetti's old quarterback tees off the season across the field
Tayven Jackson takes the first snap of the 2026 season as the visiting quarterback, at the place he used to run the huddle, and Cignetti spent Monday's press conference talking about him like he still coaches him. "Tayven played really good football for us in 24, came in at halftime in the Nebraska game and played a great second half," Cignetti said this week, per Inside the Hall — a nod to a stretch that also included six starts across 2023 and 2024 before Jackson finished last season at UCF, where he threw for 2,151 yards, 10 touchdowns and 8 interceptions. New North Texas coach Neal Brown named him the Week 1 starter, and Jackson is also the younger brother of Trayce Jackson-Davis, the four-time All-Big Ten forward now with the Toronto Raptors.
The rest of North Texas will be almost as unfamiliar to Jackson as it is to Indiana. Eric Morris left for Oklahoma State after a 12-2 season and took his entire staff with him, along with American Athletic Offensive Player of the Year Drew Mestemaker and Rookie of the Year running back Caleb Hawkins, per Yahoo Sports' AAC preview, leaving Brown to rebuild around 49 new starters — among the least returning production of any team in the country. "I've never really played a game quite like this one, where there's just so many new faces, from players to coaches," Cignetti said, adding that he's scouted the Mean Green mostly off tape of Brown's old West Virginia and Texas teams because there isn't much actual North Texas file to watch yet. One name he does have on record: transfer running back Jahiem White, who followed Brown from West Virginia and gives North Texas its clearest identity walking into Memorial Stadium.
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The banner comes out before the ball is even snapped
Indiana's last game was the national championship, a 27-21 win over Miami on January 20 that capped a four-game playoff run nobody outside Bloomington saw coming from a No. 20 seed. Last season's team went through Purdue (56-3), Ohio State (13-10), Alabama (38-3) and Oregon (56-22) to get there — a stretch that opened with a rivalry blowout and closed with a three-point survival act against the Hurricanes.
That finish is why Saturday doesn't feel like a normal opener. Before kickoff, the program is running a U.S. Air Force flyover and unveiling national championship signage inside Memorial Stadium, with two hours of Fox's Big Noon pregame coverage building to it — a program that had never won a title, and had been ranked before a season started only four times in its history before last year, opens 2026 carrying a banner instead of a chip on its shoulder, with the coach who won it still running the show.
Hoover's QB1, and now his front seven is whole again
Fall camp ended the way Cignetti wanted it to: clean. "We didn't lose anyone other than probably (tight end Trevor) Gibbs, who would be questionable for the game," Cignetti told reporters, and Josh Hoover walks into Saturday as the confirmed starter over Grant Wilson — the TCU transfer's third program in three years. Indiana returns 12 starters to build around him, eight of them on a defense that allowed just 11.7 points a game during last season's unbeaten run.
Not everyone in Fort Worth is convinced he's earned the confidence. Sonny Dykes, who coached Hoover at TCU, used his own press conference to needle the numbers: "I think Josh started 31 games here as a quarterback, and we turned the ball over 40 -- he turned the ball over 42 times in those 31 starts," Dykes said. Cignetti didn't dodge it. "We've got to clean up some of the turnovers, obviously, which Coach Dykes made light of," he said, "but when Josh got here, he met his two new best friends: great defense and a really good run game, and he was never the same after that" (ESPN).
That defense got even more complete a day before kickoff. A Monroe Circuit Court judge issued a temporary restraining order clearing Stephen Daley and Kellan Wyatt to actually play — not just practice — against North Texas, as our own report noted. Last year's tackles-for-loss leader and the linebacker who had 8 TFLs before a season-ending injury both suit up for an opener that had them running scout-team reps a week ago.
Indiana opens as a heavy favorite against a roster that isn't really North Texas anymore
Kickoff is this morning vs. North Texas, at 11:00 AM. The line opened at -40.5 in Indiana's favor, with the total set at 55.5 — a gap that has as much to do with the Mean Green's roster overhaul as with the champions' talent. North Texas won 12 games last year and beat San Diego State 49-47 in November, but that team's coordinators and best players are mostly wearing Oklahoma State orange now, which is why the number reads more like a coronation than a competitive line.
Next up after this is Howard on September 12, a step down in name value but not in Memorial Stadium's mood, with the same building that unveils championship signage this morning still buzzing when the Bison arrive. For now, the only thing standing between Indiana and 1-0 is a North Texas team playing its own season opener with a quarterback who spent two years standing in Indiana's own huddle.