Indiana Transfers Learn To Embrace Old Oaken Bucket Rivalry

Unfamiliarity doesn’t breed contempt for Purdue from Indiana’s transfers, but they’re learning how important the rivalry is for Hoosier fans.

The Old Oaken Bucket sits on the field before the 97th meeting in the series between the Purdue Boilermakers and the Indiana Hoosiers at Memorial Stadium in 2022. / Marc Lebryk-Imagn Images

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. – One of the downfalls of the transfer portal is that the players hoarded from other schools have that first-year-on-the-job learning process as far as norms and traditions are concerned.

There are 45 players on Indiana’s roster who started their careers elsewhere. They outnumber the 37 Indiana natives on the roster, some of whom overlap as players who began at another school.

 Indiana has 13 transfers currently on the roster who arrived from James Madison alone.

Given that, there’s an education process at work in the rivalry department. Indiana-Purdue games raise the hackles of fans from either side of the rivalry inside the Hoosier State. Those from outside the state have to figure out what the big deal is. Old Oaken Bucket? What’s that?

Some players don’t want to get drawn into that part of it.

“Just treat it like any other game. You know. Throw the records away. Nothing matters apart from getting a dub (win) at the end of the day,” Indiana wide receiver Myles Price said Tuesday.

Price isn’t wrong, but who wants reasonable pragmatism during a rivalry week?

Others are willing to learn, while raising their hand to denote that they weren’t familiar with how big the game is. Defensive tackle James Carpenter, one of those 13 JMU transfers, admitted his ignorance of the annual Indiana-Purdue gridiron feud.

“I'm slowly starting to realize how kind of important this game is. When I first got here in January, I didn't really even know who the rival was,” Carpenter said.

Hard-bitten Hoosier and Boilermaker fans might exclaim blasphemy, but Indiana-Purdue rivalry newbies have to start somewhere. One observation that seemed to be universal from the JMU transfers was how they were looking forward to a rivalry game of any kind.

The players who came to Indiana played in a JMU era where the Dukes transitioned from FCS to FBS football. JMU was new to the Sun Belt Conference and hadn’t developed any natural rivals yet.

An effort was and continues to be made to make fellow Virginia school Old Dominion JMU’s rival, but the former JMU players didn’t seem to be into it.

“There's no excitement behind it. A lot of people didn't know about it, so I don't know what they're trying to do. I guess they're trying to because (they’re) in-state, right?” Indiana tight end Zach Horton said.

Given that, the JMU transfers are excited to be a part of a long-time, traditional rivalry that has some mileage on it. They’ve also had the importance of the Bucket Game drilled into them by coach Curt Cignetti, teammates and alumni.

“It's just really kind of hearing it from guys that have been here. I've talked to (center) Mike Katic a lot. He’s told us a lot about the rivalry, about the game, how important it is,” Carpenter said.

“We've had alums come in here and the first thing we'll talk about is Purdue and how we need to get the Bucket back and stuff like that,” Carpenter added.

Horton said Cignetti has done his part to drive home the importance of getting the Bucket back to Bloomington. Indiana hasn’t won the contest since 2019 and hasn’t won it in Bloomington since 2016.

“(Cignetti) has talked about the Bucket, what it came from, and how much it means to IU and how important it is,” Horton said.

The players are absorbing the lessons. And while Indiana has College Football Playoff ramifications on the line in the contest, no one wants to lose sight of winning the rivalry game.

Especially given that these players haven’t experienced a game like this in their college careers.

“I never had a really set (rivalry) game, so I have to go back to high school my senior year, I would assume,” Horton said. “So it’s been a while since being a game like that. It's fun. Something (that) gives you another reason to play. So I'm really excited.”

Carpenter enjoys the ancient vibe of the Bucket itself. The rivalry game goes back to 1891, but the Bucket became part of the tradition in 1925.

The trophy concept was conceived by both schools with Indiana alumus Dr. Clarence Jones and Purdue alumnus Russel Gray coming to agree that a bucket from an Indiana well (inspired by the poem “The Old Oaken Bucket”) would best represent the rivalry.

They found the Old Oaken Bucket on a Jefferson County farm – though the lore also suggests that the Bucket might have been used by Gen. John Morgan during Morgan’s Raid through that area during the Civil War.

Whether the Morgan’s Raid bit is an apocryphal, “print the legend”-style part of the folklore matters not to the new Hoosiers.

They just want to get their hands on it.

“I know the Bucket and Spittoon (the Old Brass Spittoon, won by Indiana against Michigan State) between those two things they’re old and beat up, which is, you know, how it should be,” Carpenter said.

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