Austin Peay State University opens the 2026 football season on Thursday night, hosting Gardner-Webb at Fortera Stadium at 6:00pm. It is the first chance to see whether a preseason top-20 team can turn its ranking into a fast start.
Jeff Faris begins his third season as head coach with Austin Peay ranked in the top-20 in both the Stats Perform and AFCA preseason polls and picked to finish third in the United Athletic Conference. The Governors also enter the opener with Chris Parson back under center as the preseason UAC Offensive Player of the Year, while Joshua Sales Jr. anchors the offensive line and Jackson Head and Jaden Robinson return as preseason all-UAC pass-catchers.
The reason the opener carries so much weight is simple. Austin Peay is not starting over, but it is also not finished being built. The team returns 78.6% of its rushing yards from 2025, 70.2% of its running back rushing yards and 20 of 27 rushing touchdowns, with Parson coming off a season in which he led the ground game with 168 carries for 743 yards and 14 touchdowns. Four of the top five backs are back in Courtland Simmons, Kaden Williams, Corey Richardson and Isaiah Groves, and that gives the offense a clear base before the season gets moving.
The defense brings a smaller but still meaningful core into the game. Austin Peay returns four starters in Antori Hamilton, Jake Stonebraker, Kendyle Ball and Trevor Hardy, who had 49 tackles last season and is moving from strong safety to free safety for his senior year. Those four combined for 131 tackles, 10.0 tackles for loss, 4.0 sacks, a forced fumble, a fumble recovery and five pass breakups, which gives Faris a few proven pieces even as he integrates 58 newcomers into the 2026 roster.
That mix is what makes the Gardner-Webb game more revealing than routine. Austin Peay has been talked about as a top-20 program after finishing 7-5 in Year Two under Faris and going 6-0 at home last season, but 26 newcomers made the opening-week two-deep. The opener is therefore less about one polished depth chart than about how quickly the returning spine can steady a roster with a lot of new faces around it.
+ will carry the game, with Barry Gresham and Ethan Schmidt on the call. A win would extend Austin Peay’s home streak to seven, its longest since 1964-65, and would give Faris an early step toward a third straight year of progress. The more immediate question is whether the Governors look like the team that finished last season unbeaten at home, or like one still sorting out all those newcomers in the first Thursday night test of 2026.
