Make it make sense! While everyone is an equal partner in the Big Ten when it comes to generating revenue, leaving it up to FOX Sports to make a mess of something on the Indiana Hoosiers' upcoming schedule. In what should have been a breezy Saturday afternoon game in Bloomington, Indiana will now host the feisty Northwestern Wildcats on a Friday night in primetime. This game moved up a day.
Indiana shared out the following schedule update on Friday afternoon for its Northwestern game...
🚨 Schedule Update 🚨
— Indiana Football (@IndianaFootball) May 8, 2026
Our game vs. Northwestern will move to September 25 as part of the Fox College Football Friday series! pic.twitter.com/rqHDo3Q7QT
Not only does moving this game up a day give the Wildcats a better shot at pulling off the upset, but it completely makes a mockery of Indiana's Big Ten home opener. Curt Cignetti's program brought the conference another national championship, and this is the thanks they get from FOX Sports for doing that... No wonder one Indiana fan after another cannot believe the Hoosiers are being duped into this.
While it may make the game more marquee, every game Cignetti coaches is now must-see television.
Indiana has to open Big Ten play with Northwestern on a Friday night now
Even though Indiana does not schedule anybody worth writing home about in the non-conference, the defending national champions deserved way better than this to commence league play. What Indiana has done under Cignettis is nothing short of unprecedented. Indiana was one of the worst programs in college football history. In two years, Cignetti gave Indiana is greatest season to date...
While scheduling this game a day earlier than expected may give Indiana extra time to rest before its first road date in Big Ten play, that next game will be at Rutgers. Indiana will likely sleepwalk to an easy road victory over the Scarlet Knights in Piscataway. Although everyone has to play their part in participating in Big Ten games on Friday nights, high-end college football is reserved for Saturdays...
Even if this game does put more shine on it from a Northwestern perspective, the Wildcats are not the Hoosiers. In a best-case scenario, Northwestern might win eight or nine games this fall to make some low-key noise in the Big Ten. Conversely, in a worst-case scenario, Indiana is still going to win around 10 games and likely make the College Football Playoff. Why are we even tempting fate here?
Look out for Cignetti to fire up his team enough to the point where it makes FOX Sports look foolish.
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