Indiana Football: How IU has fared in season openers past 20 years

The Indiana football program is set to begin its 2019 campaign next Saturday so we examine how the team has done in recent season openers.

One week from today, the Indiana football program takes the field against Ball State in Lucas Oil Stadium to kick off its 2019 season. The Hoosiers have spent much of the offseason as the talk of the Big Ten about the possibility of them being able to breakthrough next season, if not this year.

While this is an important season for Tom Allen and the Indiana Hoosiers, it starts with the season opener against the Cardinals and the Hoosiers can’t take them lightly.

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Since 2000, Indiana has gone 14-5 in its season openers, losing just two of them since the 2010 season. One of those losses however, was in 2011 to Ball State, 27-20. Can you guess where it was? If you guessed Lucas Oil Stadium, you would be correct.

While that was nine years ago, the Hoosiers have looked extremely sharp since then outscoring opponents by a score of 266-199. The one outlier for the Hoosiers, and the other loss to open a season since then came in 2017 when they faced off against the No. 2 ranked Ohio State Buckeyes.

Overall, in season openers since 2000 Indiana has put up on average 34.4 points per game in the week one matchups.

The biggest win the Hoosiers had was a 51-17 performance against Towson in 2010, and also a 73-35 win against Indiana State in 2013.

The biggest loss however, was the 49-21 season opener against the Buckeyes. The Hoosiers also suffered a 35-14 loss against NC State all the way back in 2001 which was the end of the home-and-home series against the Wolfpack.

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This will be the first time Indiana has faced off against Ball State as the season opener since the loss in 2011, and any kind of in-state rival, no matter how big or small, will bring its A game when facing the bigger program.

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