Mark Bennett: As fall nears, could Terre Haute become Indiana's college football capital?

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In a seven-day span between Sept. 26 and Oct. 3, football games will be played on three college campuses in Terre Haute.

That’s never happened before.

In fact, only one other Indiana city has experienced such a busy week of college football — Indianapolis.

The lone Hoosier towns with three college football programs are Indy (with Butler, Marian and the University of Indianapolis) and Terre Haute (with Indiana State, Rose-Hulman and Saint Mary-of-the-Woods). And this fall, Terre Haute’s roster gains strength as SWMC climbs up from four years of sprint football (for players 190 pounds or under) to full-scale competition at the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics plateau.

Plus, The Woods also has its first on-campus football facility — the new, spare-but-soon-to-expand McMahon Field. SMWC previously played its home games at nearby West Vigo High School. It’s a Pomeroys program determined to grow, gradual as that process might be.

Someday, the Haute could arguably become Indiana’s college football capital.

Before fans of Notre Dame in South Bend, newly-crowned national champion Indiana in Bloomington and Purdue in West Lafayette spit out their coffee over the previous sentence, let’s add context.

Those cities support programs at the sport’s highest level — the NCAA’s Football Bowl Subdivision. Crowds from 40,000 to nearly 80,000 flock to their stadiums. Followers of the Fighting Irish, Hoosiers and Boilers extend beyond those seats. Notre Dame football, for example, has a following of more than 8 million people worldwide, according to a 2022 study by strategy consultant TJ Altimore. Game days in those towns pack vastly more buzz than Terre Haute, from Lafayette’s Breakfast Club to the Player Walk in South Bend and tailgating in Bloomington.

Terre Haute has nothing comparable, yet, with the possible exception of “The Walk,” a much-maligned but colorful bar-crawl ritual by students and alums from downtown to Memorial Stadium.

But in terms of variety, with football programs at three different local campuses, Terre Haute could develop a sweet niche.

ISU’s teams — which have struggled more than thrived in recent decades — play at the NCAA’s Football Championship Subdivision level, a Division I tier one notch below the big schools like Notre Dame, IU and Purdue. Rose-Hulman is a long-time NCAA Division III program. The Woods is beginning its era in the NAIA, a smaller division for mostly private schools but with athletic scholarships, unlike NCAA Division III.

ISU has been playing full-scale football since 1896 and Rose-Hulman since 1892, while SMWC is stepping into that realm for the first time in the school’s 186 years.

Given that ISU fields a scholarship NCAA FCS program (which allows scholarships for up to 63 players), Terre Haute seems to have a slightly stronger assortment of college teams than Indianapolis’ trio. It’s a close call, though. In Indy, Marian has won two NAIA national championships twice since launching football in 2007. The University of Indianapolis Greyhounds have won their Great Lakes Valley Conference title 11 times since its NCAA Division II program debuted in 2012. The lone NCAA Division I program, Butler, dates back to 1894 but now plays at the FCS non-scholarship level.

Indy’s teams have solid histories, so it’s hard to pick. But Terre Haute may have the greater growth potential.

Eventually, ISU, Rose and The Woods will host on-campus home games on the same Saturday, maybe by sheer coincidence or by collaboration. In the meantime, the 2026 season offers a hint of such confluence.

On Sept. 26, ISU plays North Dakota at Memorial Stadium at 1 p.m., the same moment that kickoff is scheduled at McMahon Field, where SMWC plays St. Francis. Alas, Rose-Hulman’s team has that Saturday off. A week later, SMWC again plays a 1 p.m. Oct. 3 home game against Madonna (a small university in Michigan, not the singer from that same state), while Rose-Hulman kicks off against Franklin one hour later at Cook Stadium. ISU plays at South Dakota that day.

When that three-home-games-in-a-day finally occurs, such Saturdays could evolve into a festive game-day tradition. Fans of the Sycamores, Engineers and Pomeroys could gather downtown or on the riverfront for morning music, food and beverages, and then head to their various stadiums.

Maybe, the local schools could actually schedule games against each other.

There are limitations for that possibility. Each team has a fixed number of inter-league games it must play — ISU in the Missouri Valley Football Conference, Rose in the Heartland Collegiate Athletic Conference and SMWC in the Mid-States Football Association. Plus, ISU and Rose must follow NCAA nonconference scheduling policies to earn postseason berths.

Still, it could happen.

Fans of a certain age will remember the first women’s basketball game between a brand-new Rose-Hulman program and Saint Mary-of-the-Woods in 1995. The noise was shrill and loud inside Rose’s packed Shook Fieldhouse, with 2,200 fans, many dressed in wild outfits. Is a Pomeroys-Engineers gridiron clash doable?

“We would love to do that,” said Blaine Powell, who’s coached SMWC since its sprint-football team debuted in 2022. “Anything to bring local people out to see a college football game; that would be great.”

Kevin Lanke, the Pomeroys athletic director, concurs and adds an interesting twist.

“Yes, we would certainly be open to competing with Indiana State or Rose-Hulman in the future,” Lanke said Wednesday. He pointed out that the Mid-States league schedules 10 of SMWC’s 11 regular-season games. Nonetheless, fellow Mid-States and NAIA program St. Francis will play ISU’s fellow FCS Missouri Valley school Illinois State on Aug. 29 this season.

Likewise, Rose-Hulman isn’t averse to the idea of playing SMWC, but has its requirements.

“It is definitely possible,” Engineers coach Jeff Sokol said Wednesday, “but [it] would not really benefit us from a playoff standpoint. Our [Division III] playoff format strongly encourages us to play other NCAA opponents.”

ISU, the largest local program, has similar considerations at the FCS level, but would consider facing The Woods. Sycamore AD Nathan Christensen wished the Pomeroys well in its “exciting” NAIA era ahead.

“It’s great to see the growth of collegiate athletics here in the Wabash Valley, and we look forward to watching the program continue to develop and succeed,” Christensen said Thursday. “As for a future matchup, we would certainly be open to conversations if schedules allow. That said, our football non-conference schedule is currently booked several years into the future.”

For now, the 2026 season begins for Rose on Aug. 27 at home vs. Wabash, for ISU on Aug. 29 vs. SEMO at Memorial Stadium, and for The Woods on Sept. 5 at Lawrence Tech in Michigan. It’s a new chapter in Terre Haute’s long sports history.

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