The Bucket Game is off

Well, that’s that for Indiana’s regular season.

In a joint statement issued by IU athletic director Scott Dolson and his counterpart at Purdue, Mike Bobinski, the two schools announced Wednesday that this year’s Old Oaken Bucket game is off due to rising COVID-19 test results in both programs.

This marks the first season since 1919 that Indiana and Purdue will not face one another in football.

The cancellation is no surprise after Purdue bagged its Tuesday practice and, hours later, Indiana announced that it had halted team activities. Until this week, IU had navigated the first seven weeks of the season without any major outbreaks inside of its program.

From here, the Hoosiers are expected to play in the Big Ten Championship game a crossover contest with a still-to-be-determined Big Ten West opponent next weekend, but it’s not clear if those games will happen. Penn State coach James Franklin said earlier this week that the conference has still not given member schools any direction for what to expect in the final week.

If IU does get another league game before bowl season, it will be playing for a school-record seventh conference win.