Indiana's Curt Cignetti says he's willing to play Notre Dame, but with one stipulation

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Indiana head football coach Curt Cignetti said he’d like the Hoosiers to play Notre Dame, but under certain conditions.

“Yeah, I’d like to play Notre Dame. They ought to come to our place twice, and we’ll go up there once, since they’re not in a conference,” Cignetti said during an interview on Big Ten Network with Dave Revsine on Friday.

“I’d love to play them,” he added. “It’d be a great in-state game.”

Notre Dame might scoff at having to play twice at Indiana, where Memorial Stadium has a capacity of 53,524. Meanwhile, Notre Dame Stadium seats 77,622 spectators.

Indiana and Notre Dame were set to play each other in a home-and-home series during the 2030 and 2031 seasons. But the Hoosiers decided to back out of the agreement, The Athletic’s Pete Sampson reported.

To replace Indiana on its schedule, Notre Dame then renewed its series with USC, agreeing to a four-year contract that begins with the 2030 and 2031 games that were vacated by the Hoosiers.

The games with Notre Dame were originally arranged in 2021, three years before Cignetti became Indiana’s head coach and eventually led the team to the 2025 national championship. However, Indiana athletics officials and Cignetti have stated that the preference is for the Hoosiers’ non-conference schedule to be filled with non-Power 4 opponents.

This season, Indiana will play North Texas from the American Conference, FCS program Howard and Western Kentucky from Conference USA. Next year, the Hoosiers will face Kennesaw State (CUSA), Indiana State (FCS) and UMass (Mid-American Conference) before beginning Big Ten play.

As has become typical for Cignetti, he took the opportunity to tweak the SEC, saying “We figured we would just adopt an SEC scheduling philosophy.”

That preceded the Indiana coach touting the Big Ten’s strength as a conference, taking another swipe at the SEC by saying “When we fall short, we say we fell short. We don't cry a river, whine and complain. All right? And that's why we're the best."

Conference pride appears to also be a factor in the decision not to play Notre Dame, based on Cignetti’s “since they don’t play in a conference” remark. That’s a sentiment shared by other Big Ten coaches including Illinois’ Bret Bielema.

However, several Big Ten programs can’t resist the prestige of playing a nationally recogized opponent and the exposure that a matchup with the Fighting Irish brings. This season, Wisconsin, Michigan State and Purdue will play Notre Dame.

Indiana and Cignetti obviously don’t share the same philosophy. Facing the likes of Ohio State and USC while traveling to Michigan, Nebraska and Washington is tough enough in their view.

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