DENTON, Texas — Tayven Jackson completed his first 14 passes for 208 yards and 3 touchdowns at DATCU Stadium on Saturday. He finished with a career-high 5 touchdown passes, and the North Texas Mean Green beat the Charlotte 49ers 50-10.
North Texas moved to 4-2 overall and 2-0 in the American, its third straight win. Charlotte fell to 0-6 and 0-2. The 40-point margin was the Mean Green’s largest in a conference game since a 49-7 win over FIU on Nov. 20, 2021, and their largest as a member of the American, topping a 38-point win over UTSA last season. The result also evened the all-time series at 2-2.
Jackson went 24-of-31 for 349 yards, 5 touchdowns, and 0 interceptions. North Texas finished with 580 total yards, its fourth straight game with at least 500.
For the second time this season, North Texas scored on each of its first three possessions, this time with a field goal and two touchdowns.
“It’s important for us to win at home and play well at home, and we’re 3-0 here, and we’ve played well. And so I thought today was a really mature team win,” North Texas coach Neal Brown said. “Really proud of how our guys prepared for this game and how they played today.”
“We have the better team, but it’s never easy until you make it easy, and so I thought our start fast was really important,” Brown continued.
Tayven Jackson And Jahiem White Fuel A 30-Point Second Quarter
Dominic De Freitas opened the scoring with a 26-yard field goal. CJ Coombes then intercepted Conner Harrell, and two plays later Jackson found Justin Stevenson for a 5-yard touchdown. Ian Kelly answered with a 46-yard field goal for Charlotte to make it 10-3 after one quarter.
“First interception in a while since I think week three of last season before I had got hurt. So it was good to kind of feel that again,” Coombes said. “And I told the offense, just go take care of business.”
“And I think they might have scored on the first or second play, put us up 10, and we kind of rolled from there, which is good to see,” Coombes continued.
Jackson hit Kyle Koch for a 12-yard touchdown early in the second quarter. Harrell cut the lead to 17-10 with a 75-yard touchdown pass to Derrick Eley on the next Charlotte snap, the 49ers’ only touchdown of the game.
“Just the miscue, new personnel, really first time having that call in the personnel, and it was a play that just hit on us, that’s all,” Coombes said.
North Texas needed one play to answer. Jackson connected with Baron Tipton, a junior from Coppell, for a 75-yard score, the longest Mean Green passing play of the season.
“I’m just trying to play as hard as I can, take the most of every single opportunity I get and make the most of it, and came out with a touchdown,” Tipton said.
Brayden Knox sacked Harrell in the end zone for a safety, the first for North Texas since Nov. 19, 2016, against Southern Miss. Jahiem White broke a 61-yard touchdown run two plays later. Jackson threw a 20-yard touchdown to Max Reese with 20 seconds left in the half for a 40-10 lead.
Jackson and Stevenson added a 34-yard touchdown with 10:23 left in the third quarter. De Freitas closed the scoring with a 21-yard field goal in the fourth. North Texas scored 10 points after halftime, with Jackson out of the game one drive into the third quarter and White pulled soon after, according to Brown.
“Offense, kind of sounds crazy, we just played okay. We scored 50, but we just played okay. Thought we left a lot out there,” Brown explained. “The expectation is when you sub, you continue to play well. We didn’t.”
“I think you can look at third [down]. We weren’t as sharp. We’re one of the better teams in the country going into it, and weren’t as sharp there. And we missed some things offensively, so we’ve got to continue to get better,” Brown continued.
White carried 12 times for 105 yards and 1 touchdown and caught 2 passes for 37 yards. He has run for 100 yards in three straight games and has a rushing touchdown in eight straight, a streak that began on Aug. 30, 2025, while he was at West Virginia. Stevenson caught 9 passes for 122 yards and 2 touchdowns, tying the career-high yardage total he set earlier this season at Texas State. Tipton caught 3 passes for 93 yards and 1 touchdown, and Koch had 4 catches for 55 yards.
North Texas Defense Keeps Charlotte Out Of The Red Zone
Charlotte finished with 274 total yards, the fewest North Texas has allowed to an FBS opponent since it held Wyoming to 244 on Sept. 21, 2024. The 49ers ran for 56 yards, the fewest by an FBS opponent against the Mean Green since Liberty had 45 on Oct. 23, 2021. Charlotte never reached the red zone, which had not happened to North Texas against an FBS opponent since at least 2020.
North Texas outrushed Charlotte 198 to 56 and did not turn the ball over.
“The turnover margin, explosive plays, rushing differential. Okay, well, in this game, we didn’t have any turnovers. I think they turned it, was it two or three? We turned those into points. And then we win the rushing battle by almost 150 yards,” Brown said. “And we had a lot more explosive plays. So, I thought we were dominant.”
“I think a big key to this game and us taking care of business like we should have was our ability in our front six on defense to really shut down that run game, because they’ve hit some explosive runs this year and they’ve been able to run the ball against some good people,” Brown added.
Davion Rhodes made 5 tackles with career highs of 2 sacks and 2.5 tackles for loss, plus a pass breakup and a forced fumble. Knox finished with 3 tackles, 1.5 sacks, and 2.5 tackles for loss. Cedric Roberts had 6 tackles and a sack, and freshman Dylan Williams of Duncanville added 4 tackles and a half-sack. The Mean Green forced two turnovers and have nine takeaways this season.
“Our first key for every game is stop the run. Deny the run. Our front seven, fly to the ball. And back end, fly to the ball when needed,” Coombes said. “And I mean, it showed today.”
Harrell, making his first start since a season-ending injury last year, threw for 218 yards. Jaden Barnes led Charlotte with 9 catches for 94 yards.
North Texas was penalized for 50 yards. Brown counted four procedural penalties on offense and another on a field goal.
“The frustrating things are non-competitive penalties, like procedure penalties,” Brown said. “Sometimes on offense we’re our own worst enemy because we don’t necessarily get stopped by the opposing team, we get stopped by ourselves. We either have a missed assignment, we have a silly penalty, so we’ve got to continue to grow.”
Tay Seymour returned for the Mean Green’s defense wearing a club on his hand. Brown said Seymour hurt his wrist in a spring scrimmage, had surgery right away, and was released earlier this week. Brown said he is hopeful Chase Canada will be back for Navy.
North Texas has a bye next week before visiting Navy on Oct. 24.
“That’s a whole different animal. We’ll enjoy this one. We’ll get ready,” Brown said. “The good thing is we’ve got a bye week to get ready for Navy, but it’s a whole different animal.”
Kickoff in Annapolis is set for 2:30 p.m. CT on CBS Sports Network. North Texas returns to DATCU Stadium on Thursday, Oct. 29, against Florida Atlantic at 6:30 p.m. CT.
