Jackson State and Tennessee State Open 2026 Season in the John Merritt Classic

The HBCU football season kicks off in style Saturday night, when Jackson State renews one of the sport’s signature rivalries against Tennessee State in the John A. Merritt Classic. Kickoff at Vanderbilt’s FirstBank Stadium in Nashville is set for 7:30 p.m. Central, with the game streaming on ESPN+, and it’s the first time these two have met since 2022.

The Classic carries real weight beyond the trophy case. It is named for John A. Merritt, who led Jackson State to the school’s first Black college football national championship in 1962, then packed up for Nashville the very next year and turned Tennessee State into a powerhouse over a 21-season tenure that produced a 172-33-7 record and seven Black college national championships. Fittingly, this year’s game finally returns to his adopted hometown: Saturday marks the first time the two programs have played at FirstBank Stadium, and Tennessee State’s first game as the designated home team away from Nissan Stadium since it hosted Florida A&M on Aug. 31, 1996.

Jackson State arrives with a lot to defend. The Tigers went 9-3 and 7-1 in the Southwestern Athletic Conference (SWAC) a year ago, their second straight SWAC East Division title under fourth-year coach T.C. Taylor, a former Jackson State quarterback who is 28-9 since taking over his alma mater in 2023. The preseason polls back that up: Jackson State was picked second in the SWAC East behind Alabama State, and picked third nationally, behind South Carolina State and Prairie View A&M, in the sport’s inaugural preseason Black College Football Poll, which spans the SWAC, the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference, the Central Intercollegiate Athletic Association and the Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Conference.

Leading the way is quarterback Jared Lockhart, the SWAC’s co-Freshman of the Year in 2025, who went 5-0 in seven starts as a true freshman after stepping in for an injured JaCobian Morgan. Lockhart completed 76 of 113 passes for 1,187 yards with eight touchdowns and three interceptions, and he has plenty of help around him: first-team preseason All-SWAC picks Kam Sallis and Quaveon Davis headline a veteran group. Sallis, the conference’s reigning Defensive Player of the Year, racked up 53 tackles with two interceptions and two pass breakups while starting all 11 games, and Davis anchored an offensive line that helped Jackson State finish second nationally in rushing offense. Wide receiver Nate Rembert, a second-team preseason All-SWAC pick, caught 45 passes for 750 yards and seven touchdowns.

Tennessee State, meanwhile, is looking for real signs of a turnaround under second-year coach Reggie Barlow, who went 2-10 (0-8 in the Ohio Valley Conference) in his debut season but still found reasons for hope, including a 24-21 win over North Carolina A&T in last year’s Merritt Classic and a 24-7 homecoming win over Howard. The Tigers spent the offseason retooling their offense, hiring Matt Leone as offensive coordinator after his North Carolina Central attack ranked second in the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference in total offense, and elevating Cedric Thornton to associate head coach and defensive coordinator.

Barlow is also handing the keys to a new quarterback in Daylin Lee, a Winston-Salem State transfer who threw for 2,046 yards and 23 touchdowns against seven interceptions last season while completing 62.6 percent of his passes and adding 15 rushing touchdowns over three seasons as a Ram. Lee was one of 14 Tigers named to the OVC’s 2026 preseason players to watch list, alongside running back Zach Simmons-Brown, who ran for 456 yards and two touchdowns in 2025, and cornerback Syncere Safeeullah, who intercepted a pass and broke up three others while starting six games.

As for who really owns this rivalry, that’s still up for debate. Tennessee State holds a 25-20-2 edge in a series that dates to 1975, but Jackson State has won the last three meetings, including a 16-3 win at a neutral site in Memphis in 2022, snapping a six-game Tennessee State winning streak from 2012 through 2017. The teams have played most of their history at that neutral site, where Tennessee State leads 17-14-1, which makes Saturday something of a novelty: the first meeting in Nashville since a 26-26 tie at Hale Stadium on Sept. 10, 1988.