BLOOMINGTON — Indiana football will pay out a total of $3.075 million for its non-conference games this season.
The cheapest of those games comes Friday night against Indiana State, an in-state FCS foe that IU will also face in 2027 and 2030. The matchup this weekend will cost the program $475,000.
Indiana’s only loss to an FCS opponent was to Southern Illinois in 2006. The Sycamores are 0-20 all-time against the current iteration of the Big Ten and haven’t defeated a current Power Four opponent since beating Cincinnati in 1987.
They are 0-7 all-time against the Hoosiers.
Indiana’s non-conference scheduling strategy became a national talking point over the summer after it canceled a home-and-home series against Virginia. The Hoosiers won’t play another Power Four-level non-conference opponent until making a trip to South Bend in 2030 to play Notre Dame, but the athletic director Scott Dolson and coach Curt Cignetti have defended the moves.
They are currently the only team in the Big Ten without a non-conference game against a Power Four opponent through 2029.
“We want our non-conference schedule to put us in the best position for success at the end of the season,” Dolson told The Herald-Times in June. “What we really want to do is make sure we are competitive in the back half of the season and create meaningful games in the Big Ten because we are really playing for postseason opportunities.”
Indiana could pivot from the strategy depending how the ongoing discussions over the future format of the College Football Playoff shake out. The Power Four conferences are debating a variety of different models — one of them would give the Big Ten four automatic qualifiers while another would feature 11 at-large selections — and Dolson said the school adjust accordingly.
Indiana football future non-conference schedules (compensation for opposing team)
2025
2026
2027
2028
2029
2030
2031
Michael Niziolek is the Indiana beat reporter for The Bloomington Herald-Times. You can follow him on X @michaelniziolek and read all his coverage by clicking here.
This article originally appeared on The Herald-Times: How much did Indiana pay Indiana State for today’s football game?
Reporting by Michael Niziolek, The Herald-Times / The Herald-Times
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