IU has released its football schedules through 2014. Some of the non-conference opponents were known, but this is the most firm information we have had to date. You can click through to view the full schedules, but here are a few tidbits:
- The Missouri series that has long been discussed will begin in 2013 in Bloomington and will be played in Columbia in 2014. IU and Missouri last played in the late 1980s and early 1990s, when IU was 4-0-2 in a six-year run against the Tigers, which ended in 1992.
- Good news for East Coast alumni: the Hoosiers make two trips to that part of the country in 2012: at Massachusetts on September 8 and against Navy in Annapolis on October 20. Navy makes the return trip to Bloomington in 2013.
- The game against UMass was news to me. The Minutemen are moving up to FBS next year and will join the MAC, so while it may be a head-scratcher at first, it's really no different from IU's trips to Western Kentucky or Ball State. The dumbing down of football scheduling has consequences for programs like IU. In the early 1990s, IU still could command one-off games with MAC schools. Now that programs such as Michigan and Ohio State seek multiple MAC games per season, IU doesn't have that sort of leverage anymore and has to offer a two-for-one to nearly any FBS opponent, even a newcomer like UMass (and actually, it appears that the UMass series is a home-and-home, as is the current series against Ball State, as far as I can tell). See also the trip to Bowling Green (that's Bowling Green in Ohio, as opposed to WKU in Bowling Green, Kentucky) in 2014.
- IU will open at home against Indiana State in 2012, 2013, and 2014.
- Although not listed on the full schedules, IU will play long-promised home-and-home series against Wake Forest and South Florida beginning in 2015.
One thing that jumps out at me is that counting 2011, IU will average 6.5 home games per season over the next four years. IU has only 6 home games in 2011, 2012, and 2014, but has eight home games in 2013. That is a bit of a financial disadvantage, but it reflects the current reality.
LATE EDIT: @FakeCoachWilson on Twitter (if you aren't following him, what's your excuse, slapdicks?) notes that beginning in 2012, UMass will be playing its home games at Gillette Stadium in Foxboro, home of the New England Patriots. That makes it more appealing, although I can't imagine the Minutemen will be filling the place.