5 teams Indiana football should schedule as future non-conference opponents

It’s official, Indiana’s going to have to play at least one power conference opponent in the non-conference starting with the 2027 season.

The requirement comes as part of the Big Ten’s negotiations with the SEC to expand the current playoff field from 12 teams to 24. The Big Ten didn’t require conference teams to schedule at least one power conference opponents while the SEC did, something the latter league wanted in return for affirming the new playoff format, which became official on Monday.

Indiana’s current non-conference schedules, official through the 2030 season, feature no power conference opponents. As previously stated, that’s going to have to change. The Hoosiers are already working on finding an opponent for 2027, per reporting from the Athletic.

Under ideal circumstances, what teams would Indiana schedule? Here’s a few we had in mind:

Kentucky

This is the rather obvious answer and is probably the No. 1 option throughout Indiana’s fanbase.

Indiana and Kentucky played a storied football rivalry for decades with the winner taking home the Bourbon Barrel trophy. The two programs first faced off way back in 1893 and their latest meeting came in 2005, a 38-14 victory for the Hoosiers in Bloomington.

The Hoosiers narrowly have the all-time record, going 18-17-1 against the Wildcats and, of course, beat current head coach Will Stein’s offense twice in 2025 when he was at Oregon. There’s a ton of reasons to restart this series.

… but it might be a hard sell for the Wildcats, who already have Louisville locked in as a power conference rival. If Kentucky’s up for it, it’s hard to imagine Indiana declining.

Tennessee

Is this because of the 2020 Gator Bowl? Yes. Is this also to add an SEC opponent? Also yes.

Indiana and Tennessee became pretty familiar with one another in the weeks leading up to perhaps the Hoosiers’ magnum opus as a doomed program prior to 2024. That game, which would’ve snapped the program’s decades-long bowl win drought ended with a nightmare-type sequence when the Volunteers scored 14 points late in the fourth to retake the lead and the Hoosiers couldn’t come back.

Josh Heupel has taken over in Knoxville and has the program pretty stable. It’d offer an opportunity for Indiana to visit one of the sport’s great stadiums while hosting a marquee opponent in Bloomington.

Why not?

Kansas

Both Indiana and Kansas have invested heavily in football in recent years while hiring coaches who’ve been successful at the lower levels, doing so as institutions with storied history on the hardwood rather than the gridiron.

It’s just worked out a bit better for Indiana. Kansas is flailing as of late but it’s worth betting on Leipold to right the ship at some point. That new stadium needs a great product to justify its construction, right?

Oklahoma

This one is based less on history or theme than it is on school color.

Indiana is cream and crimson. Oklahoma is cream and crimson. Pretty similar shades of cream and crimson at that to, for what it’s worth. The Sooners have been solid under Brent Venables, making the 12-team playoff field in 2025 and nearly facing the Hoosiers before falling at home.

Louisville

There’s already some sour grapes here from the cancelled football series that featured just one game, a Louisville win at Lucas Oil Stadium in 2023 that helped pave the way for the losing season that led to Indiana hiring Curt Cignetti.

Now that power conference opponents are required, why not the Cardinals? They’re led by an old foe in Jeff Brohm, whose Purdue teams largely confounded Tom Allen’s Indiana. There’s already an association there before you factor in the geography.

Indiana and Louisville fans are close associates. The Ohio River Valley is one of the more interesting areas for sports I’ve ever been to. Why not give the series a go again?

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