Indiana football fans hoping for a long-awaited home-and-home with Notre Dame will have to wait even longer.
The games scheduled for 2030 in South Bend and 2031 in Bloomington have been cancelled, according to multiple reports. National reports said Indiana made the decision to back out. The series was originally put together in 2021, when Tom Allen was coaching IU and Brian Kelly was leading Notre Dame.
The move fits a pattern under Curt Cignetti. Since taking over at Indiana, he has already wiped out previously scheduled nonconference games against Louisville and Virginia.
Cignetti has been clear about his preference not to stack the schedule any harder before the grind of the nine-game Big Ten slate. Last week, he also said he expects a mandated scheduling shift now that every other major conference has moved to 10 Power Four games.
Notre Dame, meanwhile, used Monday to announce the return of its rivalry with USC starting in 2030, with the first game taking the spot that had been reserved for the start of the IU series.
For all the in-state connection, Indiana and Notre Dame almost never see each other on the field.
They did meet in South Bend in December 2024 in the College Football Playoff, and Notre Dame won 27-17. Before that, the teams’ most recent regular-season meeting came on Sept. 7, 1991, when the Irish rolled 49-27 at home.
That 1991 game had also followed a huge gap. The previous matchup before it came all the way back in 1958.
Indiana is 5-24-1 all-time against Notre Dame and has dropped seven straight in the series. The Hoosiers’ last win in the matchup came on Oct.
21, 1950.
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For the Hoosiers, the most relevant name is Holden Staes, who has already been through stops at Tennessee, Notre Dame and Indiana. He is reportedly exploring a possible return to Bloomington for another season, which would be a potentially useful development for a position group Indiana has been trying to sort out. Whether that actually turns into a comeback is still unresolved, but it is the kind of opening that could matter if the Hoosiers can turn a legal wrinkle into roster help. [Read more 🡒]
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For a defense that needs to settle quickly before the season arrives, those newcomers give Indiana a chance to raise both its floor and its upside. The intrigue now is less about who arrived than how fast they can fit into the scheme and turn camp reps into real production, because several of these additions are expected to play prominent roles once the games start. [Read more 🡒]