Tulane didn't blow things up the same way. Will Hall was the Green Wave's passing game coordinator last season and got promoted into the top job rather than parachuted in, which buys some scheme continuity even with Jon Sumrall gone. Hall still went shopping in the portal — receiver Destyn Hill, running back Jaylin Lucas, corner Macho Stevenson and quarterback Zeon Chriss are among the additions — because staying on top of the American takes reloading too, title or not.
The quarterback rooms on both sidelines were unsettled as of spring practice. Chriss came over from Houston to compete with Ball State transfer Kadin Semonza in an open battle, while North Texas is sorting out Jackson against East Carolina transfer Chaston Ditta and holdover Chris Jimerson. Neither staff had a workable answer for who starts games in November when spring ball wrapped, and that's before accounting for whatever shakes out over a full fall camp and ten-plus games of live reps.
Tulane's making its own bit of history: another trip to the title game would make it the first American Conference team to reach the CFP in back-to-back years. North Texas, for its part, isn't just playing revenge here — a win in Yulman would say the Neal Brown rebuild is already further along than a roster this new has any right to be.
Whatever happens with the two quarterback competitions, this fixture has been decided by whoever finishes stronger the last month of the season the last two years running, and both programs know it. Tulane's title-game win was built on shutting down the exact quick-strike passing attack North Texas rode all year, and now the Mean Green have to find that identity again with a new arm.
It's a long way from July to a Week 12-ish kickoff, and both rosters will look different by the time this one actually gets played. But a rematch of an American title game, with a defending champ trying to repeat and a 12-win team trying to prove last year wasn't a fluke, is the kind of late-season game the conference needed more of.