Doyel: Like Michael Penix Jr. before him, QB Tayven Jackson can lead IU to new heights
INDIANAPOLIS – The IU football team has a pro at quarterback. The emergence of freshman Tayven Jackson at QB is the big takeaway, bigger than the final score, from the Hoosiers’ game Saturday at Lucas Oil Stadium. But seeing how the scoreboard was working and I did happen to see what it said, sure, let’s report the following as fact:
Louisville beat IU 21-14.
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Which means Cardinals coach Jeff Brohm beat IU’s Tom Allen again, improving to 5-1 head-to-head after winning four of their five matchups while at Purdue – though this will be his last win at Allen’s expense for the foreseeable future. The Hoosiers won't play the last two games of what was meant to be a three-game series, but not because IU is scared of Louisville or Brohm, necessarily. IU just wants more and easier home games now that the Big Ten is expanding and the College Football Playoff is expanding and the Big Ten schedule is hard enough, thank you very much.
The Hoosiers opted out of their 2025 game against Louisville in Bloomington, free of charge because they gave two years notice, and paid the $1 million penalty to buy out a 2024 trip to play at whatever Louisville calls that stadium across the Ohio River. Used to be named for Papa John’s. I like pizza. Now it’s named for a bank or a credit union. I could pretend to care, but won’t.
The development at quarterback is too exciting, anyway.
Yes, the development at quarterback for the Hoosiers. Yes, the team that lost Saturday. Hey, you’re right, wins are nice.
Know what’s nicer?
A superstar at quarterback. And the Hoosiers have one of those.
Again.
Tayven Jackson reminds me of Michael Penix Jr.
Tayven Jackson gives off big Michael Penix Jr. vibes, right down to that dive for the pylon Saturday. Penix became a star with a dive like that in 2020, straining for the pylon in overtime to beat No. 7 Penn State. His two-point conversion run gave the Hoosiers a 36-35 victory, their first against a Top-10 team in 33 years.
Why is Penix in this story? Because IU has another QB like him, which means the Hoosiers have a chance – someday – at returning to the heights of 2020, when IU proved the most tried-and-true axiom in college football: A team is only as good as its quarterback.
The Hoosiers had a future pro and Heisman candidate at quarterback in the Covid-shortened 2020 season and went 6-2, finishing No. 12 in the country. Lots of us thought Tom Allen, in his fourth full season at IU, had done that. Now we know better: Michael Penix did that, and he’s doing it again at Washington, where he transferred after being injured in 2021. The Hoosiers went 2-10 that year because it’s like I’m trying to tell you:
A team is only as good as its quarterback.
With Penix still in Bloomington, Washington was 4-8 in 2021. With Penix, the Huskies went 11-2 last season and are 2-0 now.
A couple differences between Penix and Jackson. One, Penix is a lefty and Jackson a righty, though both have big arms that are exceptionally accurate. Two, Penix was in his third season of college when he turned around IU in 2020, and his fifth college season when he turned around Washington in 2022. Give Jackson – barely 18 months removed from leading Center Grove to a second consecutive Class 6A title on this very field in 2021 – another year to turn around IU.
One more difference between Penix and Jackson that I’d better point out, so the angry goofballs don’t chase me down on social media: Penix scored on his dive for the pylon. And Jackson, who is a half-step slower, was stopped 18 inches short of the end zone in the final minutes Saturday. The Hoosiers, having closed a 21-0 halftime deficit to 21-14, still had one more chance though: Fourth-and-goal, less than 2 feet from the end zone.
IU called a timeout to get its best short-yardage play, which offensive coordinator Walt Bell decided – on a day the Hoosiers had 27 carries for 58 yards, and Jackson was 24-for-34 for 299 yards – was a slow-developing handoff into the teeth of the Louisville defense. The play didn’t gain those 18 inches.
It lost 18 inches.
Another difference between Penix and Jackson: Penix had a great offensive coordinator, Kalen DeBoer, now the head coach at Washington.
Jackson’s has Walt Bell, who was available because he’d been fired as head coach at UMass, where his teams were 2-23.
Only Tayven Jackson can save Tom Allen's job
Jackson is special. When you know, you know.
You know?
First time I saw Penix play, it was in this same building. It was 2019, the Hoosiers were playing Ball State at Lucas Oil Stadium, and Penix threw for 326 yards in the Hoosiers’ 34-24 victory. As I wrote that day, “Michael Penix Jr. just might lift IU football to new heights.”
When you know, you know.
Same with Tayven Jackson, though this was my second “first” look at Jackson. My initial look was the 2019 Class 6A title game, when Jackson was a sophomore at Center Grove. Carmel beat the Trojans that day, and while my story was on Center Grove tailback Carson Steele, I sought out Jackson – who was very upset on the field – to give him encouragement and tell him what I thought was true:
“You’re going to win Mr. Football in two years.”
Jackson didn’t – Gibson Southern’s Brady Allen, who followed Brohm from Purdue to Louisville – was the 2021 IndyStar Mr. Football. But Jackson was a serious candidate, and he did lead Center Grove to a second Class 6A title.
Jackson was special then, and he’s special now. He doesn’t have great mobility for the position, but he has the arm, accuracy and moxie to carve up a college defense. He’s a pro, as I said. Will he start in the NFL someday? Wouldn’t surprise me. What I will say: Bookmark this story and come back to me in three years.
Because I will. Anyone have a smiley emoji? Put it here.
Anyway.
If we’re looking at the immediate future of the 2023 IU football team (1-2), it’s not great. The Big Ten is going to be rough. Winning five more times to qualify for a bowl game won’t be easy.
If we’re looking at the long-term future of IU football coach Tom Allen, it’s not necessarily great either. He’ll be here at least through the 2024 season, when it would cost the school the enormous – but doable – sum of $7.95 million to buy out the remainder of his contract. Firing him after this season would cost an impossible $20 million. Why so much? Because IU made the same mistake most of us did after the 2020 season, when it gave him a lucrative extension to reward him for a season we know now was fueled not by coach Tom Allen, but by quarterback Michael Penix.
Then again, two years from now, Jackson could do for Allen what Michael Penix Jr. did for the IU coach 2½ years ago: Get the man paid. By then Jackson will be a sophomore star. Throwing to receivers Donaven McCulley and Omar Cooper and getting it in space to Jaylin Lucas, Jackson will throw for a ton of yards in 2024 and lead the Hoosiers to a bowl game. Bookmark this story.
Maybe Allen sticks around. Maybe he’ll deserve to stay, if he can get the right offensive coordinator. Because while you’re correct – the Hoosiers lost the game I’m here today to write about – they found their quarterback and their future in Tayven Jackson.
Find IndyStar columnist Gregg Doyel on Twitter at @GreggDoyelStar or at www.facebook.com/greggdoyelstar.
This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: IU football loses to Louisville but finds quarterback: Tayven Jackson
