North Texas won 12 games last season and then spent the winter replacing almost everyone who made it happen.
Eric Morris left for Oklahoma State after leading the Mean Green to the American Conference championship game and a New Mexico Bowl win. Quarterback Drew Mestemaker, running back Caleb Hawkins and receiver Wyatt Young were among the players who moved on from an offense that led the country in scoring and total offense.
Neal Brown inherited the success, but not much of the lineup. North Texas entered 2026 with 70 newcomers and no returning starters from last season, part of a three-year stretch in which UNT says it has added 215 new players. Brown did not replace them with a young roster. The Mean Green list an average age of 21.01, second-oldest in the FBS.
Most of the replacements had already played somewhere else. Tayven Jackson arrived at quarterback after stops at Tennessee, Indiana and UCF. Jahiem White came from West Virginia, where Brown coached him. Chandler Strong entered the season with 32 career starts before taking over at center, while linebacker Aaron Alexander had already played at Michigan State, UMass and Arkansas State.
Brown spent August trying to make those individual résumés matter less than what the group could do together.
North Texas built team meals, off-field competitions and player-led “Mean Green talks” into camp. Brown repeatedly talked about connectedness as one of the most important parts of the rebuild, and the program’s camp series showed the same emphasis through team competitions away from practice.
The approach was necessary for a roster that had almost no shared history. Brown told the team late in camp it was “way better” than it had been two weeks earlier, but he still had open questions along the offensive line, at receiver and in a secondary already dealing with injuries.
The offensive line concerned him most.
After an August scrimmage, Brown called Strong the clear best player up front and said Johnny Williams IV was the only other lineman he felt good about. He criticized the unit’s pad level, footwork and physicality in the run game and said it was not ready to play winning football.
Three weeks later, the same group gave Brown one of the more encouraging parts of North Texas’ 52-16 loss at Indiana.
Williams, Willie Goodacre, Strong, Keon Johnson and Neto Umeozulu made their first UNT starts together against the defending national champion. North Texas ran 67 offensive plays, rushed for 152 yards and held the ball for 37:22 while allowing one sack.
Strong did not sound like a player who thought the score told the entire story.
He told the North Texas Daily he was “happy as hell” with the offense’s performance.
Williams supplied the best individual work up front. PFF gave him an 87.8 pass-blocking grade and did not charge him with a pressure. Brown said Tuesday that the lone sack belonged to Jackson for holding the ball too long and praised Williams and Umeozulu at tackle while saying Strong battled in the middle.
The line was not clean everywhere. Johnson allowed two pressures and struggled in pass protection, while Goodacre and Dylan Shaw continued splitting work at left guard. But the unit Brown had challenged throughout camp gave Jackson enough stability to complete 22 of 28 passes and keep North Texas from spending the afternoon in obvious passing situations.
Jackson won the quarterback job because Brown trusted the way he handled the offense. Brown called him the most consistent quarterback in camp and praised his maturity, resilience and ball security. The opener showed that part of his game more than the arm talent that once made him a highly recruited quarterback.
Jackson finished with 192 passing yards and largely took what Indiana gave him. North Texas gained at least 37 yards on each of its first seven possessions and held the ball long enough to keep the game competitive through three quarters.
“It wasn’t his A-game, but it was a good game,” Brown said afterward.
White gave Brown something more familiar.
The senior was playing for the first time in 364 days after an injury limited him to two games last season. Brown had kept him out of full-tackle periods during camp even after he was medically cleared, then immediately gave him 21 touches at Indiana.
White rushed for 61 yards and North Texas’ only touchdown and caught seven passes for 36 yards. PFF credited him with 49 rushing yards after contact and six missed tackles forced.
“He’s an elite player,” Brown said. “He was close to really having a special game.”
White’s workload also showed what Brown wants the offense to become. North Texas stayed committed to the run despite trailing throughout the afternoon, and White became an immediate outlet for Jackson when Indiana changed the pressure picture.
The receiver rotation is less settled. Corri Milliner caught four passes for 66 yards, Justin Stevenson had two for 47 and Josiah Martin added two for 26. Milliner and Stevenson supplied the most productive plays outside, but White led the team in receptions.
Brown rebuilt the defense with the same reliance on experience. Matt Powledge arrived after three seasons as Baylor’s defensive coordinator and brought a multiple 4-2-5 defense that can change fronts and bring pressure from different levels. Alexander and Zakye Barker combined for 16 tackles at Indiana, while CJ Coombes led the Mean Green with nine.
The secondary is already forcing Brown to use the depth he spent the offseason building. Caden Jenkins is out for the season, Chase Canada will miss the UNLV game and Zach Johnson has not returned. Peyton Taylor, Keshawn Davila, Jaden Allen and BJ Allen Jr. are among the players North Texas can turn to outside.
Indiana exposed that group without needing much volume. Josh Hoover completed only 13 passes, but they produced 231 yards and four touchdowns. The Hoosiers averaged 17.8 yards per completion and turned several explosive throws into the kind of quick scores North Texas could not match.
That was the larger lesson from Brown’s first game. The Mean Green were not overwhelmed for most of the afternoon. They ran more plays than Indiana, held the ball nearly 15 minutes longer and moved it consistently enough to enter the fourth quarter down 31-16.
Then Indiana scored 21 unanswered points.
“For three-and-a-half quarters, I thought we battled them and went toe-to-toe,” Brown said.
Saturday gives Brown his first chance to see what that effort looks like at home. North Texas is promoting the UNLV game as “Denton Desert,” with a stripeout planned at DATCU Stadium, and Brown scheduled the final scrimmage of camp in the afternoon to prepare his team for the same time of day it will face the Rebels.
The roster Brown inherited barely exists anymore. The one he assembled has plenty of age and college experience, but almost none of it was accumulated together.
Indiana showed that the pieces can already function. UNLV will show how quickly they can start looking like a team.