Reigning National Champion Hoosiers: The Unknown Is the Challenge

Shannon Griffith | Lead Football Analyst | Hoosier Tailgate

Indiana football begins the 2026 season Saturday against North Texas, and on paper, this is a game the reigning national champions should control.

But Week 1 rarely happens on paper.

The challenge facing Curt Cignetti and the Hoosiers isn’t simply North Texas. It’s preparing for an opponent that Indiana hasn’t actually seen.

North Texas enters the season under new head coach Neal Brown, with a substantially rebuilt roster and a coaching staff bringing together different offensive and defensive backgrounds. Indiana can study Brown’s previous offenses. The Hoosiers can examine where North Texas’ transfers played before arriving in Denton. They can study the backgrounds of the Mean Green assistants.

What Indiana cannot study is 2026 North Texas game film.

That’s what makes Saturday interesting.

Studying tendencies instead of a team

There is a significant difference between scouting an opponent and studying coaching tendencies.

Normally, an Indiana game plan would be constructed from an opponent’s current film. Coaches identify formations, personnel groupings, fronts, coverages, pressures and situational tendencies.

What does the opponent do on first-and-10? How does it defend 11 personnel? What changes on third down? How does the defense react to motion? Where does pressure come from?

Against North Texas, many of those questions don’t have definitive answers yet.

Indiana instead has to work backward.

Brown’s previous offenses at West Virginia and Troy provide clues to what North Texas could become. His offensive background includes spread and Air Raid principles, RPOs, quick-game concepts, multiple formations, motion and a run game capable of forcing defenses to account for every part of the field.

Those are tendencies Indiana can prepare for.

They aren’t guarantees.

That’s an important distinction.

Indiana’s first 15 plays could be asking questions

This is also where the opening script becomes especially important.

Fans often hear coaches or broadcasters talk about a team’s first 10 or 15 scripted plays and assume those are simply the offense’s favorite calls.

That’s not always the purpose.

Against a new staff, some of those plays are designed to gather information.

Indiana can line up in 2×2 and see how North Texas aligns. It can present 3×1 and see how the secondary adjusts. Motion can help identify whether defenders travel with receivers or whether the defense bumps its coverage.

A run call can tell Indiana where the extra defender is fitting.

An RPO can identify the conflict defender.

Protection calls can begin revealing where North Texas wants to generate pressure.

In other words, some early play calls are questions.

North Texas’ reactions provide the answers.

The challenge for Indiana will be how quickly Josh Hoover, offensive coordinator Mike Shanahan and the rest of the offense process that information and begin exploiting it.

Josh Hoover’s command will matter

That makes Hoover one of the most intriguing parts of Saturday’s opener.

The evaluation shouldn’t be limited to his passing statistics.

Watch his command.

Can Hoover identify the front? Can he recognize pressure? Does he understand where Indiana has favorable numbers? Can he make the proper check and get the football snapped without disrupting the offense’s rhythm?

If North Texas presents multiple defensive structures, those responsibilities become even more important.

A 3-3-5 structure would make sense based on the defensive backgrounds involved with the new North Texas staff, but Indiana must prepare for considerably more than one picture. Three-down fronts can become four-man pressures without changing personnel. Four-down looks and 4-2-5 structures are also possibilities.

Indiana doesn’t need to correctly predict every defensive call before Saturday.

The Hoosiers need to recognize them when they appear.

Week 1 football is different

That brings us back to something coaches emphasize before virtually every season opener.

Week 1 exposes things practices cannot.

Communication.

Alignment.

Assignments.

Substitution procedures.

Penalties.

Ball security.

Special teams.

Situational football.

A team can spend an entire offseason preparing for opening day, but eventually something happens that wasn’t on the practice script.

That’s when coaching takes over.

Indiana’s talent advantage should be significant Saturday. But Cignetti will likely be evaluating much more than whether his team wins.

How cleanly did Indiana operate?

How quickly did the Hoosiers adjust?

Did they control the line of scrimmage?

Did they eliminate unnecessary penalties and turnovers?

Did they play with the physical identity that has become associated with Cignetti’s program?

Those questions become considerably more important as Indiana moves deeper into the season.

The matchup that could dictate everything

The place to start is Indiana’s offensive line against the North Texas defensive front.

If Indiana can establish the running game, much of the schematic uncertainty becomes less important.

That’s football at its simplest.

Control the line of scrimmage, stay ahead of the chains and force the defense to commit additional resources to stopping the run.

The same applies defensively.

Bryant Haines’ defense needs to prevent North Texas from establishing a comfortable running game and put the burden on former Indiana quarterback Tayven Jackson and the Mean Green passing attack.

Negative plays can change the complexion of the game quickly.

Get North Texas behind the chains, disguise the picture after the snap and make the quarterback consistently process Indiana’s defense.

Don’t overlook the hidden yards

Special teams also deserves attention.

Season openers can be decided—or unnecessarily complicated—by mistakes that never appear in an offensive or defensive playbook.

A poor punt.

A missed protection assignment.

A penalty during a return.

Bad field position.

A coverage breakdown.

Indiana experienced firsthand during last season’s championship run how dramatically one special-teams play can change a football game.

Against an opponent Indiana should defeat, the objective is simple: don’t give North Texas possessions, field position or momentum it didn’t earn.

Coach Griff’s prediction

Indiana is a massive favorite entering Saturday, with the line sitting around 40.5 points.

I expect the Hoosiers to win comfortably.

I don’t expect them to cover that number.

There may be some early feeling-out as Indiana determines exactly what North Texas intends to be offensively and defensively. That’s not necessarily cause for concern. In many ways, that’s precisely what should be expected against an opponent with this many unknowns.

Eventually, Indiana’s talent, depth and ability to adjust should take control.

Coach Griff’s Prediction: Indiana 32, North Texas 10.

The most important thing Saturday won’t simply be the final score.

Watch how Indiana handles something it hasn’t seen.

Because championship-caliber teams aren’t defined by having every answer before kickoff.

They’re defined by how quickly they find the answers once the game begins.