Cignetti names Hoover QB1 as Indiana opens camp No. 6
Indiana enters its highest-ever preseason ranking with a quarterback question answered and a defensive line still waiting on the courts to finish theirs.
Hoover has the job. The front seven is still in legal limbo
Curt Cignetti named TCU transfer Josh Hoover his starting quarterback entering fall camp, with Grant Wilson as the backup, according to 247Sports. Hoover started three of his four seasons in Fort Worth and has reportedly turned heads in Bloomington since he arrived — one NFL scout told On3's Pete Nakos his arm "is on par with Fernando Mendoza's," and a second source called him "very similar to Fernando play-wise" in both fit and feel with the offense.
The bigger camp story is up front, and it comes with a catch. Defensive linemen Stephen Daley and Kellan Wyatt both rejoined the roster this month after a Colorado court ruling restored a fifth year of eligibility to their draft class — Daley led Indiana with 19.0 tackles for loss and 5.5 sacks last season, Wyatt added 8.0 TFLs and 2.5 sacks before a season-ending injury, per Pete Thamel. But Cignetti told reporters at a Monday press conference that neither is cleared to actually play: "Wyatt and Daley can practice. Right now they're ineligible to play," he said, adding the staff is handling it "day-by-day" while the case works through the courts. The room everyone is hyping is still short two of its best players on Saturdays.
The banner that got them here
Indiana's last game was the national championship, a 27-21 win over Miami on January 20 last season that capped a four-game playoff run few saw coming when the Hoosiers entered it as a No. 20 seed. Along the way they beat Purdue 56-3, Ohio State 13-10, Alabama 38-3 and Oregon 56-22 before finishing off the Hurricanes for the title.
That finish is the whole reason this preseason feels different. A program that had never won a national title, let alone been ranked before the season began more than four times in its history, now opens 2026 as the team everybody else is circling.
No. 6 is a program record, and Cignetti is not hiding from it
Indiana opened the AP poll at No. 6, its highest preseason ranking in school history and just the fifth time the Hoosiers have been ranked before a season even started, according to Brett McMurphy. It came with 8 first-place votes — behind only Ohio State's 40 and Oregon's 14, and ahead of Notre Dame's 6 and Miami's 1, per CFBKings. McMurphy also pointed out the twist: last year's team opened at No. 20 and still won it all, so a No. 6 slot this time is less a compliment than a bigger target.
Cignetti sounds like a coach who has made peace with that. At Big Ten Media Days he leaned into the swagger rather than dodge it — "I'm a firm believer in our blueprint... all we do is win," he said, before adding he was done sitting still over the offseason: "I've been on vacation long enough. I'm tired of being bossed around by my wife. I'm ready to boss somebody else around," via Fox Sports. Underrated is no longer the pitch; Brett McMurphy still put Indiana on his most-underrated-teams-of-the-CFP-era list this month, but that reads now like a leftover label from a program that has already outgrown it.
A first-year coach and a gutted roster are Indiana's welcome mat
Indiana opens the season on September 5 vs. North Texas at Memorial Stadium, and the Mean Green arrive in the middle of a full teardown. First-year coach Neal Brown lost his old staff's starting quarterback, Drew Mestemaker, to Oklahoma State along with most of the skill-position room, leaving North Texas as one of only two FBS teams returning zero starters. The one name worth knowing is running back Jahiem White, a West Virginia transfer who followed Brown from Morgantown and ran for 1,879 yards and 14 touchdowns there before an injury cut short his 2025 season — North Texas's staff has said they expect him ready to go in the opener.
The line opened at -40.5, with the total set at 55.5. That gap says less about North Texas's ceiling under Brown than about the fact that a defending national champion is hosting a team that is starting over at nearly every skill position, with a first-time head coach getting his introduction to the job on the road in Bloomington.