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The Indiana football program, like many others around the sport, is readjusting its future schedules given potential postseason implications.
The Hoosiers have cancelled an upcoming series against Virginia. They’re paying more than $2 million to do so.
The home-and-home was initially agreed upon in December of 2021. The first meeting was expected to be played in 2027 in Charlottesville with a rematch in Bloomington coming in 2028.
Now, both matchups are off the books. Indiana has since replaced the Cavaliers with Group of Five competition.
Indiana football will pay a hefty fee for cancelling.
The contract between the Hoosiers and Cavaliers had a $500,000 cancellation fee. Indiana will now be forced to pay Virginia the half-million-dollar charge, and more.
The school has already replaced UVA with a 2027 game vs. Kennesaw State. It announced that Austin Peay would fill the 2028 slot.
The Hoosiers will reportedly pay the Governors $400,000 to make the trip to Bloomington. That comes on top of the $1.3 million they’ll pay the Owls for the schedule change.
Quick math shows the $500k + $400k + $1.3m sums totaling $2.2 million. All to avoid a Virginia team with three winning seasons in the last 17 years.
Unfortunately, it’s a path many in college football are following. As the College Football Playoff expands, teams are simply looking to schedule Ws outside of conference play.
The Hoosiers are being mocked for their cowardly trend.
This isn’t the first time Indiana has cancelled a football series. They scratched two games with Louisville from the ’24 and ’25 slates. It’s becoming a trend in Bloomington, and fans are taking note.
Indiana was mocked online for its latest decision.
“Imagine being so scared of an OOC P4 school that you duck VIRGINIA in order to play Kennesaw State and Austin Peay,” one social media user commented. “Curt Cignetti is scared,” replied another.
Unfortunately, the Hoosiers were rewarded for their most recent cancellation with Louisville. Removing the Cards from the schedule paid immediate dividends.
Louisville would’ve easily been IU’s most difficult OOC opponent. Instead, they played Charlotte, Florida International, and Western Illinois on top of a favorable Big Ten slate.
Indiana faced one ranked team (Ohio State) in the regular season, which it lost to by three scores. The remaining 11 teams finished a combined 51-81 with only one foe (Michigan) posting a winning record in the regular season at 7-5.
The Hoosiers made the playoff by beating up on weaker counterparts. They then landed a swift exit from Notre Dame in a game that wasn’t nearly as close as the 27-17 score would indicate.
The cancellation shouldn’t come as much of a shock given coach Curt Cignetti’s stance on scheduling. “I like winning ball games,” he said earlier this year. “We play nine Big Ten Conference games, which is more than most other conferences.”
He’ll piece together another cupcake out-of-conference slate in 2025 with hopes of making a second CFP appearance.