The Indiana football team will look to make noise again in the Big Ten and they finally know their conference schedule.
The Big Ten announced a little over a month ago that they would be going to a conference only schedule and would add a tenth game. We finally got to see that schedule today as the Big Ten released the revised schedule.
There had been rumors going around that they were going to front-load the schedule with division only games to keep the travel down early, but that didn’t happen. That was good news for the Hoosiers as it spaced out their toughest games more.
Had the Hoosiers been scheduled to play the East first it would have guaranteed them playing Michigan, Penn State, and Ohio State in three of their first six games. Add in Michigan State and that makes a tough stretch to start the year.
It still is not an easy schedule for Indiana, but it is much more manageable. The schedule still isn’t as nice as what they would have played with the original slate of games. That schedule had set up nicely for the Hoosiers to possibly get off to a 7-0 start if they could have upset Wisconsin in the first game.
The Hoosiers still start their schedule at Wisconsin, but now play Penn State in week two and Ohio State in week four. It is going to be a rough schedule for the Hoosiers, and we will get to see real early if they can hang with the big boys.
Indiana will get a bye in week five and then play Minnesota and Michigan in back to back weeks. The end of the schedule is a bit easier as they finish with Maryland, Rutgers, Michigan State and Purdue.
Indiana will have to be ready to go right off the bat or a very promising season could go awry very quickly. But if they can pull off some upsets they could be in a great position to finish with a great record.
We will have more analysis on the schedule and how it affects the Hoosiers in the coming days. Look for revised Big Ten predictions on each game and standings for the 2020 season.