Indiana’s approach to nonconference scheduling has been in the news this month after it was revealed the Hoosiers had canceled a 2027-28 home-and-home contract with Virginia.
That maneuver left IU’s known future schedules void of any non-league games against Power 4 opponents, save for a 2030-31 home-and-home series with Notre Dame.
And it left the door open for a wave of criticism.
Even before IU coach Curt Cignetti could take the stage in Las Vegas for his Tuesday appearance at Big Ten Media Days, at least two media members lobbed questions at league commissioner Tony Petitti that mentioned Indiana’s schedule in 2024, and their approach to future schedules.
And then Cignetti was asked about that rationale for cancelling the Virginia series and replacing them with non-Power 4 opponents in Bloomington.
“We picked up an extra home game, and we play nine conference games,” Cignetti said.
The second-year coach knows his primary competition for a spot in the College Football Playoff comes from the SEC. And he’s focused on that league’s current approach to scheduling in an effort to make sure the playing field is level.
“The two best conferences in college football, any football guy that’s objective will tell, you is the Big Ten and the SEC,” Cignetti said. “12 of the 16 SEC teams play three G5 (Group of Five, i.e. non P4) or an FCS game. 12 of those teams play 36 games — 29 G5 games, and 7 FCS games — and one less conference game (than the Big Ten).
“So we figured we’d just adopt the SEC’s scheduling philosophy. Some people don’t like it. I’m more focused in on those nine conference games.”
The Virginia series was set before Cignetti took the IU job in late 2023, but he said he did sign off on keeping it initially — ahead of the 2024 campaign. But with time to digest the Power 4 landscape and what it takes to play meaningful games in December, he’s had a change of heart.
Cignetti signaled he’s okay with just about any approach to scheduling as long as there is consistency across the P4 conferences. Currently the Big Ten and Big 12 play nine conference games, with the SEC and ACC playing just eight. So if Indiana were to play a team like Virginia in the nonconference, they’d be up to 10 Power 4 opponents, while the majority in the SEC were playing just nine.
“We need to standardize the schedule across the board if we want to have objective criteria for who should be in the playoff and who shouldn’t,” he said. “And we need to take the decision making off the (CFP) Committee to some degree.”
For his part, Cignetti’s preferred approach would be that every P4 conference play nine league games, with each league getting a predetermined amount of automatic qualifiers for the CFP. On each league’s championship game weekend in early December, he’d like to see additional conference play-in games to determine who gets the automatic spots. That, he says, will help eliminate any concerns about unequal strengths of schedule during the regular season.
“Let’s have everybody play nine conference games, and on championship weekend, the three (seed) will play six and four will play five,” he said.
For complete coverage of IU football, GO HERE.
The Daily Hoosier –“Where Indiana fans assemble when they’re not at Assembly”
- You can follow us on Twitter: @daily_hoosier
- Find us on Facebook and Instagram
- Seven ways to support completely free IU coverage at no cost to you.
