Indiana and Cincinnati got out their respective long-term planners and set aside a pair of dates to play some football. The two schools have scheduled a home-and-home series for 2021 and 2022. Brett McMurphy of ESPN.com was first to report this scheduling agreement between Indiana and Cincinnati.
Tom Groeschen of the Cincinnati Enquirer reports via Twitter Cincinnati will travel to Indiana on September 18, 2021 and will host the Hoosiers in the return game on September 24, 2022. Groeschen also reports Cincinnati is working on scheduling games with Kentucky, Pittsburgh and longtime rival Louisville. For now, any talk about Cincinnati and Alabama scheduling any games has been put on ice.
Who knows exactly where Indiana and Cincinnati will be by 2021 in terms of competitiveness. Indiana is not going to be leaving the Big Ten anytime soon, but the program has generally been in the bottom half of the conference on an annual basis. Still, Cincinnati getting a Big Ten team on the schedule, and getting a game at home, is still pretty significant. Unless the realignment game starts up again as power conferences move to a different playing field with autonomy or even a complete split from the current NCAA structure, Cincinnati appears to be left stranded in the American Athletic Conference. Any games against power conference opponents can be critical for bowl positioning when compared to other Group of Five schools.
How much are you looking forward to this match-up years down the road?