2026 IUFB Season

[LIHoosier]

A better photo than my weak a$$ phone grab (and wallpaper-able)

 

[rcbowla]

10-2 to be cautiously optimistic 

[Hoosierfan2017]

I’m mad 8 months in advance about the aka Big Noon Taliban, ruining the IU/OSU game. 

[BtownStrength]

Before last season I predicted a step back to 9-3. No way in hell could I have foreseen the amazing season we had. My mistake. 

2026: 11-1 (the 1 being either OSU or Michigan). Somewhere in the 5-8 seed range in the CFP with a December home game in Bloom. 

[IUHoosierJoe]

I was 100% serious when I predicted 12-0 in the record prediction thread for the 2025 season. And for 2026, my prediction is, once again, 12-0. Great times!

[Stuhoo]

I thought there are two bye weeks.

My misconception, or did they change the number from last year?

[Banksyrules]

I’m glad we have what should be  5 straight victories. Within those five games we’ll hopefully get roles defined and kinks sorted out before we go to Nebraska.

[LIHoosier]

2 minutes ago, Stuhoo said:

I thought there are two bye weeks.

My misconception, or did they change the number from last year?

Labor Day is the latest it can be and Thanksgiving didn't move so the 'extra' week is gone. Despite that, the CFP final moved back a week. (???)

[MonteMarcaccini]

1 hour ago, Hovadipo said:

That Week 10 bye is going to be sorely (lol) needed. I love our schedule otherwise. 

Cig mentioned several times how this year’s team was tired/beat up for the PSU and Wisco games and those were 5 and 6 weeks of games in a row.

9 in a row is a brutal stretch.

Edited Tuesday at 11:57 PM by MonteMarcaccini

[BtownStrength]

11 minutes ago, Stuhoo said:

I thought there are two bye weeks.

My misconception, or did they change the number from last year?

I believe 2 byes only happens when Week 1 (Labor day) gets played before September 1. Happens every 5 years or so 

[Brass Cannon]

I like this schedule a lot actually. 
 

I think very little of Nebraska. So we get a pretty easy slate to start the season.  Should be able to keep our offense pretty vanilla and save some stuff. 
 

We get OSU at home. Which helps to lessen impact of going to Michigan.  Which I’m not really sold on. Then we get Minny at home to finish off this middle 3rd of the season. 
 

Then we get a nice bye week to prepare for two potentially tricky games.  Before closing out with our annual beating down of Purdue. 
 

Our first 3 this year were by far harder than any of our sets of 3 next year. 
 

 

[OliviaPope40]

What game is homecoming?

[Hovadipo]

37 minutes ago, MonteMarcaccini said:

Cig mentioned several times how this year’s team was tired/beat up for the PSU and Wisco games and those were 5 and 6 weeks of games in a row.

9 in a row is a brutal stretch.

I’d rather play week 0 and get ourselves another bye before B1G season starts. Not sure how easy that’d be to pull off though. 

[Home Jersey]

OSU and Michigan will be tough. Glad to have OSU at home. Not sure how good Michigan will be in Y1... could be very IMO. But we will see. Minnesota could be a trap game but I think we handle them at home.

Need to stay healthy through that stretch. Gonna be tough without an earlier bye. 

12-0 is definitely on the table. Suppose we can't go undefeated every year so 11-1 wouldn't bother me too much, I guess. 

[Brass Cannon]

43 minutes ago, MonteMarcaccini said:

Cig mentioned several times how this year’s team was tired/beat up for the PSU and Wisco games and those were 5 and 6 weeks of games in a row.

9 in a row is a brutal stretch.

Hopefully the starters can play really well the first 6 weeks and we can get the starters around a quarter or so of rest per game. 
 

OSU has their bye after us and has some battles. 
 

Michigan gets their bye on the 10th but has to play Penn State before playing us   So the at least don’t get an extra week of prep. 
 

USC has two byes one right before us because they will schedule a week 0 game. Maybe we get lucky and they end up filling the week in before us. 
 

Washington has 3 games between us and their bye. Two of them road trips. 
 

As of now we look to only really be getting the disadvantage against USC 

[Brass Cannon]

12 minutes ago, Hovadipo said:

I’d rather play week 0 and get ourselves another bye before B1G season starts. Not sure how easy that’d be to pull off though. 

Are you suggesting we offer western Kentucky a ton of money to move our game to August?  Because I would be down 

[IUFootballHappyHappyJoyJoy]

4 hours ago, Stuhoo said:

I thought there are two bye weeks.

My misconception, or did they change the number from last year?

USC gets two bye weeks but only because they scheduled a Week 0 game... which currently has no opponent. 

[LIHoosier]

Just now, IUFootballHappyHappyJoyJoy said:

USC gets two bye weeks but only because they scheduled a Week 0 game... which currently has no opponent. 

USC only has 11 games right now cuz the South Bend Softies couldn't play more than one decent team a year. They had no problems keeping Purdon't up, heck they probably tried to play them twice.

[Brass Cannon]

1 minute ago, LIHoosier said:

USC only has 11 games right now cuz the South Bend Softies couldn't play more than one decent team a year. They had no problems keeping Purdon't up, heck they probably tried to play them twice.

Yep I saw a video that explained Notre dame was stacking the weeks before USC with byes and cupcakes so they could spend weeks prepping.  I’m glad USC backed out. 
 

I hope Wisconsin, Miami and BYU trounce them 

[LamarCheeks]

I'm sure this already has been covered, so excuse me -- I've always been a little slow on the uptake. 

It just hit me that we play North Texas in the opener.

Tayven Jackson just transferred there.