History of the Notre Dame vs. Indiana football series: all-time meetings, record

On Friday night, college football fans across the country will witness a spectacle never before seen in the sport’s 155-year history.

The start of the College Football Playoff not only marks the first time it will be held as a 12-team event, but the first games long reserved for bowling at neutral venues will be played on campus, bringing a sport closer to the pageantry and the to bring the passion that defines him.

The first of these four first-round duels brings an additional twist: opponents from each state will compete against each other.

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The playoffs begin Friday night when No. 10 seed Indiana makes the relatively short trip north to face No. 7 seed Notre Dame at Notre Dame Stadium. The winner will face No. 2 seed Georgia 1 in the Sugar Bowl in January.

Although the Hoosiers and Fighting Irish are based in the same state, Friday’s game will be a novelty for them too – not because they meet in the playoffs, but because they meet at all. Although their locations are only about 200 miles apart, they rarely play with each other.

Here’s what you need to know about Indiana vs. Notre Dame football history, including the all-time matchup count, series record and more:

Indiana vs. Notre Dame football history

Indiana and Notre Dame football first met in South Bend in 1898, with the Hoosiers earning an 11-5 victory over a Fighting Irish team that finished 4-2 that season, 20 years before Knute Rockne made his debut in Notre Dame gave a sideline. Indiana finished 4-1-2 this season, losing only to arch-rival Purdue.

The Irish would get some revenge the following season when they eliminated the Hoosiers 17-0.

It was the second of five consecutive years that the two programs ran. Since then, however, their meetings have become far less frequent.

All-time games Indiana vs. Notre Dame

Friday’s College Football Playoff game between Indiana and Notre Dame will be the 30th time the programs have faced off.

Many of their previous encounters took place in times long past. The Hoosiers and Irish have played just once since 1958, with 19 of their first 29 contests coming before World War II. On Friday they will meet again for the first time since 1991.

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Why don’t Indiana and Notre Dame play each other?

This relative lack of all-time matchups raises a natural question: Why don’t Notre Dame and Indiana play more often?

The answer is complex.

For one thing, the two aren’t in the same conference, which would have guaranteed more matchups over the last century, although with the 18-team Big Ten it’s far from certain that they would face each other most often in years.

While Notre Dame is an independent program, it plays a national schedule and has long-standing series with Navy (97 games all-time) and USC (95). Even within the region, the Irish have opted to play games elsewhere. They have played Indiana’s main rival Purdue 88 times, with the Boilermakers’ campus in West Lafayette about an hour closer to South Bend than Bloomington. Notre Dame also played Michigan State 79 times and Michigan 44 times.

Because all of their non-football programs joined the ACC prior to the 2013-14 academic year, the Irish are required to play an average of five games per season against ACC teams over a 12-season period from 2014-25.

Indiana had made an effort to get Notre Dame on the schedule. Former Hoosiers athletic director Fred Glass and former Irish athletic director Jack Swarbrick were friends and former law partners, but even that relationship wasn’t enough to get Indiana and Notre Dame to play after Glass took over at his alma in the late 2000s Mater had taken over.

“Jack is a Bloomington boy, so he’s generally sympathetic to IU, but it became clear pretty quickly that it wasn’t going to work out,” Glass told the Bloomington Herald-Times.

Friday’s playoff showdown won’t be the last time Indiana and Notre Dame face off. The schools have agreed to a two-game home-and-home series, with a game in South Bend in 2030 and a return to Bloomington in 2031.

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