The Indiana Hoosiers have added the Charleston Southern Buccaneers to their 2017 football schedule, the school announced on Tuesday.
Indiana will host Charleston Southern at Memorial Stadium in Bloomington on Saturday, Oct. 7. The game replaces Indiana’s canceled home game against FIU that was scheduled for this weekend.
Charleston Southern, a member of the Big South Conference in the Football Championship Subdivision, was scheduled to play at South Carolina State last weekend, but that game was also postponed due to Hurricane Irma.
Indiana opened the 2017 season on Thursday, Aug. 31 with a 49-21 loss at home to the Ohio State Buckeyes. The Hoosiers then traveled to Charlottesville and defeated Virginia 34-17.
With the FIU game this weekend canceled, Indiana next hosts Georgia Southern in Bloomington on Saturday, Sept. 23 (3:30pm ET, BTN).
2017 Indiana Football Schedule
I know the B1G instituted a rule a few years back that it’s members cannot schedule any FCS teams to their schedules and the only games moving forward were games previously scheduled before the announcement. Is this rule still in effect and this was an “exception” given the hurricane circumstances or does the rule no longer exist?
They changed the rule and allow it again:
https://fbschedules.com/2017/07/big-ten-loosens-restrictions-scheduling-fcs-teams/
You can schedule FCS teams if you have 4 home conference games and 5 away, as IU does (though I have to think they’d be allowed an exception in this case no matter what).
Disappointed they didn’t try to get GaTech
Maybe they tried but failed.
Not a lot of options here. Indiana needed a team that had a game cancelled, had the same 10/07 open date, wanted to add back a game to make up for the one lost, and probably needed someone willing to come to Bloomington for a ‘paycheck’ game. GaTech might not have felt the need for a make-up. Even if they offered to make it the front end of a home-and-home, Indiana loses a lot of ticket selling ability with the last minute addition. I wouldn’t hold it against Indiana that they scheduled an FCS team, there weren’t a lot of options.
Good for Indiana. It may not be the best option but at least they got a replacement game. I’ve not heard anything from the other teams that had games cancelled.
Now if we can just get Houston on the phone with ULM.