Towards the end of his second day on the job, IU coach Curt Cignetti jumped right into the Indiana and Purdue rivalry with two feet.
“I’ve never taken a back seat to anybody and don’t plan on starting now. Purdue sucks,” he told a packed house at Simon Skjodt Assembly Hall.
A year later he backed it up, pummeling an indeed very sucky Purdue team 66-0.
It was a Boilermaker loss so bad it left no doubt then head coach Ryan Walters would be fired, and he was just days later.
That opened the door for new Purdue head coach Barry Odom, who has now entered the rivalry’s war of words with his own edgy comment this week.
Odom was not as blunt as Cignetti, but he definitely took a shot at the IU head coach on Indianapolis radio on Friday — specifically as it relates to Indiana’s approach to non-conference scheduling.
“I could take the approach of one of the other schools in the state and cancel games, do some of those things, but the schedule is what it is,” Odom said during an appearance on The Fan Morning Show on 107.5 The Fan in Indianapolis. “We’re going to try to get as good as we can get and go win those games.”
To make sure we’re giving you the full context, Odom wasn’t asked about Indiana, or even nonconference scheduling. He was asked about the low expectations for his football team from the outside, and ended up talking his way into a backhanded shot at IU and Cignetti.
Indiana’s recent decision to cancel a home-and-home 2027-28 series with Virginia has gone viral this week, as the Hoosiers have paid to get out of the those games and replaced them with home games against lower level opponents. Many commentators have criticized Indiana’s approach.
But as we’ve already covered here, IU’s decision to cancel games is fueled by the Big Ten’s nine-game conference schedule. While all Big Ten schools play nine league games each season, the SEC (along with the ACC) only plays eight. Most SEC and ACC schools are playing one Power 4 nonconference game, but that only serves to level the playing field with the Big Ten.
As long as there is a national scheduling imbalance across the power conferences, schools like Indiana with College Football Playoff aspirations would be wise to avoid Power 4 nonconference games. Michigan and Ohio State won the last two national titles after playing three non-Power 4 opponents during the nonconference.
We’ll have to see if the pressure to win more gets to Odom and he eventually follows suit. But he inherited games against Notre Dame the next four years, and it would be a wildly unpopular decision to cancel those games. Purdue fancies itself as a Notre Dame rival. So truth be told, he probably doesn’t have a choice.
