Todd’s Take: I Miss The Indiana-Kentucky Series … In Football

While the Hoosiers stack the deck with easy, bland nonconference foes, Todd Golden misses nonconference, geographic peer rivalries.

Indiana running back Jermaine Chaney runs the ball in a 1993 game at Memorial Stadium against Kentucky. / Indiana University archives

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. – It’s hard to get excited about the Indiana football team playing Charlotte at noon Saturday in Memorial Stadium, even if the Hoosiers are undefeated.

Nothing personal against the 49ers, but there’s nothing about the Hoosiers’ next likely victim that gets the adrenaline flowing. The game serves a purpose as a virtually guaranteed win for bowl eligibility. But it’s also a not-so-tacit admission of Indiana’s weakness as a program over the years. 

All Big Ten schools should strive to achieve bowl eligibility against peer schools, not lower FBS fodder or FCS schools. One game against inferior competition is fine; every program does that. Two games is pushing it, though it’s not unprecedented.

Three games against tomato cans – Indiana sprinted to the cupboard in 2024 with Florida International, Western Illinois and Charlotte – is an affront to the fans.

Charlotte doesn’t move the needle. Once a power in men’s basketball, the 49ers started their football program in 2013. Charlotte played at the FCS level for two years before it transitioned to FBS in 2015.

Since then? Charlotte has achieved one winning season – a 7-6 mark in 2019. It has had two three-win seasons, two two-win seasons and one one-win season.

Fired up about this one yet? At risk of not reading the room, I know fans are fired up about Indiana football generally … and for good reason with the 3-0 start. The portion of the Venn diagram between the enthusiasm factor and the fans who appreciate wins regardless of the caliber of opponent could be larger than I want to admit.

Still, there should be some credulity behind the “a win is a win” line of thinking. Beating Charlotte in football is akin to a full-grown adult beating a middle-schooler in one-on-one basketball. When you can set the table favorably to earn easy wins, it just feels empty.

It wasn’t long ago that nonconference schedules were a lot more fun than Florida International, Western Illinois and Charlotte.

Put your basketball cap on for a moment.

When Kentucky disappeared from the regular season men’s basketball schedule after the 2012 season, it became a crusade for Indiana fans to get the Wildcats back on the schedule.

Tradition for both schools, each team’s place in the college basketball pecking order, that all matters, but it was really about pride. There is nothing better than getting one over on a nearby rival.

Mike Woodson finally made the return of the Kentucky series happen when a four-year deal was announced that will start with the 2025-26 season. That’s great. Those teams should always be playing.

Indiana quarterback Antwaan Randle El plays in the 1999 game against Kentucky at Memorial Stadium. / Indiana University archives

Using it purely as an example of beefing up Indiana’s nonconference schedule, it would be cool if Indiana also could play Kentucky in football again.

Few talk about the football Indiana-Kentucky series with the same hushed tones as basketball, but it was competitive. Indiana leads the series 18-17-1. The modern version of the series began in the late 1960s with intermittent home-and-home series. Then it became an annual affair starting in 1987.

It even had a trophy at-stake for a time – the Bourbon Barrel. That ended in 1999 when Kentucky player Arthur Steinmetz was killed in an alcohol-related car accident.

Ten of the games from 1967-2005 were decided by a touchdown or less. One memorable one I covered was in Lexington, Ky., in 2000. A duel between bite-sized Indiana quarterback Antwaan Randle El and super-sized Kentucky signal-caller Jared Lorenzen. The Wildcats won 41-34 in a thriller that was worth the price of admission, win or lose.

Not every game was a classic and not every Indiana or Kentucky team was very good. Often they were both bad at the same time. But even in the worst years for either program, at least something like state pride was at-stake.

The cover of the 1979 program for Indiana's home game against Kentucky. It features the short-lived Mr. Hoosier Pride mascot. / Indiana University archives

The border battle means something to fans on both sides of the Ohio River. It was an easy game for fans to attend at both sites.

The Indiana-Kentucky football game didn’t generate anything like the same passion as the basketball version does, but it was certainly better than a random one-off against Charlotte.

The Indiana-Kentucky football series ended in 2005. Kentucky has since made a priority of its intra-state rivalry with Louisville, a team it didn’t play for some of the years of the Indiana series. The Wildcats and Cardinals only began playing annually in 1994.

Like Indiana, Kentucky also loads up on its share of Group Of Five and FCS fodder. The nine-game conference schedule in the Big Ten (and debated by the SEC) makes the return of the series remote. A shame.

Even if it isn’t Kentucky, Indiana has other regional teams it could play. Indiana used to play Missouri annually in the 1980s, for example. More recently, Cincinnati and Louisville were on Indiana schedules.  

The decision by Indiana to cancel what was supposed to be a three-year series after one single game with the Cardinals was exactly what it shouldn’t be doing.

Sure, it begot the 77-3 win over Western Illinois. But how much better would it have been if Indiana burnished its credentials with a more competitive win against the Cards? Look at how heads were turned after Indiana walloped UCLA?

Future Indiana opponents don’t offer much in the regional peer rivalry department. Indiana is playing Notre Dame in a home-and-home series in 2030-31 – that certainly passes the needle-moving test.

However, the only other Indiana series set against a fellow Power Four school is a home-and-home with Virginia in 2027-28.

Hopefully, Indiana coach Curt Cignetti – who had nothing to do with scheduling the 2024 games – will want to at least try to play peer regional schools in the future – even with the reality that scheduling trends make it a long shot.

Those games were more fun. Games like Charlotte? Just a forgettable means to an end.

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