Indiana completely sold out the 2026 football season.
The reported attendance for Saturday’s win over Western Kentucky was 54,695, and that preceded 54,376 for Howard, and 54,493 for North Texas. Those are all new entries in the all-time top-10 for crowd size at Memorial Stadium, and all roughly 2,000 over capacity.
But you wouldn’t know it if you only watched the second halves of the games to this point.
Baking in miserable heat while watching mismatches on the field, a significant portion of the fans left those games at halftime or at some point in the second half.
IU coach Curt Cignetti built the program to this previously incomprehensible level. He’s the primary reason nonconference games where IU is favored by north of 40 points are selling out.
He built it, and they came.
But they’re also leaving too soon, he says.
Cignetti is showing some compassion. He’s giving fans a pass for their retreat to the tailgate or air conditioning over the first three weeks. After all the crowd hasn’t been needed as the Hoosiers outscored their first three opponents 145-16.
But starting Friday night as Big Ten play begins, the head coach wants to see the fans stay for the full 60 minutes.
“We need to have a great crowd that stays the whole game,” Cignetti said on Monday. “We played our three sauna games in the afternoon. I can understand having to leave in the second half, particularly when the game is out of hand and it’s 152 on the turf. It’s hard to coach in these games, too.
“But this will be low 70 weather this week and it will be a nice cool football kind of night in Bloomington, and we need to have a great crowd.”
This isn’t the first time Cignetti has challenged the home crowd. In 2024 he famously implored the student section to “study later” ahead of the Maryland game to open home Big Ten play — and they delivered.
The second-largest home crowd ever attended the 2025 Big Ten opener against Illinois a year ago.
And Indiana fans became a major factor in the 2025 national title run, delivering significant advantages at the Rose Bowl and Peach Bowl, and even outnumbering Miami at its home stadium in the championship game.
Seven of the top-10 largest crowds in Memorial Stadium history have come in the last two calendar years. But Cignetti is more interested in fourth quarter attendance as the competition stiffens.
Fans will want to bring a sweatshirt on Friday. The forecasted high temperature is currently 72 degrees with no rain and light wind. But temperatures could dip into the 50s by the fourth quarter.
No. 4/5 Indiana (3-0) faces Northwestern (2-0) at 8 p.m. inside Memorial Stadium on Friday (FOX).
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