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The new “it” rivalry in the Big Ten is one nobody would have seen coming.
Ohio State still has and will always have Michigan as its all-time rival. That’s never going anywhere.
But right now, the Buckeyes are being challenged for Big Ten supremacy by a school way more steeped in roundball lore than any gridiron greatness. No longer does Hoosier Hysteria only trigger old clips of Bobby Knight throwing chairs and the Indiana men’s basketball team pulling off a perfect season.
This is 2026, and Indiana is the defending national champion — in football. And the latest perfect season to come down the pike in Bloomington doesn’t belong to the 1976 Hoosier men’s basketball team but rather the 2025 Hoosier football team led by Fernando Mendoza. IU went 16-0 last year as Curt Cignetti threatened to become college football’s best coach in only Year 2 at Indiana, and guess what?
He and the 2026 Hoosiers would like to do it again. So far, so good on that end, with IU ranked 5th, sitting at 6-0 overall and 3-0 in the Big Ten. On Saturday at noon ET on FOX, Indiana will welcome its new-age Big Ten rival to Bloomington, as No. 4 Ohio State (5-1, 3-0), which won it all in 2024 before watching the Hoosiers capture the league and national crown last year, arrives for one of the biggest games of the 2026 season.
IU will be desperate to prove it’s going absolutely nowhere, while OSU will be desperate to avoid its second loss of the season. Here are 3 matchups among the many that could decide whose desperation wins out:
1. Ohio State minus one Jackson vs. IU’s smothering run D
That IU rush defense is truly elite, leading the Big Ten going into Week 7 by allowing a mere 75 yards per game, on the nose. The Hoosiers have only given up 450 yards rushing through 6 games, with foes averaging just 2.31 yards per carry. So, Bryant Haines’ defense doesn’t need any help in the trenches against the talented Buckeyes, but it’ll gladly take some on Saturday.
Instead of Ohio State having its star tandem of Jackson running backs in Bo and Ja’Kobi to unleash on Indiana, it’ll only have Bo, with Ja’Kobi Jackson being ruled out earlier this week. The senior transfer who spent the previous 3 seasons at Florida had started the past 2 games for the Buckeyes, ahead of Bo Jackson, but he was seen limping after the Buckeyes’ blowout win over Maryland last Saturday.
That’s 354 yards rushing at 6.0 yards per carry with 6 touchdowns that won’t be available to Ohio State against arguably the best rushing defense in the country, so this is a really big deal. With that Jackson out, the Buckeyes will naturally lean on super sophomore Bo Jackson, who has piled up 460 yards rushing and 4 touchdowns in 2026 while averaging 5.2 yards per carry.
Bo Jackson showed last season as a true freshman that he could carry the load, earning second-team All-Big Ten honors while churning out 1,090 yards, 6 TDs and averaging 6.1 yards per carry. This is a star player, but when you have 2 stud running backs to go against a stout rush defense but only 1 is available, in a hostile environment, that means Haines’ defense can do a lot more zeroing in on Bo Jackson instead of preparing for both Jacksons.
It’s a different year with different players on both lines of scrimmage, but for some perspective, Bo Jackson did have relative success in last season’s Big Ten Championship Game loss to the Hoosiers. He grinded out 83 yards on 17 carries in the 13-10 grudge match, including a 20-yard burst.
On Saturday, he’ll be called upon again in this budding rivalry, this time not on a neutral field and, suddenly, without his backfield co-star with the same last name. Indiana will have only one Jackson to worry about. Can it take advantage and make the Buckeyes one-dimensional?
2. OSU’s top-ranked pass attack vs. Indiana secondary
With the Buckeyes a bit short-handed in the backfield, perhaps Ohio State will lean on its high-octane passing attack just a little more on Saturday. It’s the passing attack that features arguably the best quarterback in the country in Julian Sayin and maybe not so arguably the best wide receiver in college football in Jeremiah Smith. Naturally, that connection alone has helped the Buckeyes rank No. 1 in the Big Ten in passing offense at 337.8 yards per game.
Indiana basically shut down everybody else in outlasting Ohio State, 13-10, in last season’s Big Ten Championship Game, but Smith still got his. He caught 8 passes for 144 yards, although Smith was held out of the end zone. Can the Sayin-to-Smith connection do major damage against an Indiana pass defense that’s ranked in the upper half of the Big Ten at 7th?
The Hoosiers are so hard to run against, Ohio State just might need its passing attack to carry the load if it wants to put up enough points to outlast IU in its own building. Smith’s ridiculous 2026 numbers at midseason could pass muster for an entire season, with the junior OSU legend in the making already catching 48 passes for 916 yards and 11 touchdowns in 6 games. He’s averaging an equally absurd 19.1 yards per grab, so he’s been able to stretch the field and then some so far.
But will he have enough help on the outside to stretch the field in Bloomington on Saturday? Going into Week 7, the only other Ohio State receiver with more than 10 catches is senior Devin McCuin, who’s caught 17 passes for 245 yards and 2 touchdowns. McCuin didn’t play in last week’s win over Maryland, but he hasn’t shown up on the injury report this week.
The same goes for senior wideout Brandon Inniss, who sat against the Terrapins but seems set to play on Saturday. Inniss has 10 catches for 147 yards and 1 touchdown this year and could emerge on Saturday as a key weapon along with McCuin if the Hoosiers load up that much on containing Smith.
Or maybe containing Smith will just be impossible, even for a Curt Cignetti defense and even in a big game. The answer just might hold the key to who gets out of this latest IU-OSU grudge match with a huge October victory.
3. Julian Sayin vs. Josh Hoover — which red-hot QB cracks first?
Hoover has been as advertised in his first 6 games at Indiana. His 88.6 QBR ranks 5th in all of college football, and the interceptions that kept getting in the way during his years at TCU have disappeared so far — totally. Hoover has yet to throw a pick in a Hoosiers uniform against 17 touchdown passes, and no doubt Curt Cignetti and offensive coordinator Mike Shanahan are big reasons why.
It’s been a seamless transition so far for Hoover, who’s thrown for 1,364 yards with a 68.2 completion percentage. But dipping this into reality also brings the cold truth, that Hoover hasn’t faced anywhere near the defense that he will come Saturday when the Buckeyes roll into town. Ohio State ranks third in pass defense in the Big Ten, so Hoover’s rosy Indiana narrative will get a really stiff test.
Sayin will have a lot to prove, too. He didn’t lead Ohio State to a repeat national championship last year, but all the guy did was finish 4th in the Heisman Trophy voting in his first season as the Buckeyes’ starter. The College Football Playoff loss to Miami was the end-game crusher, but Sayin no doubt remembers the Big Ten title game setback to Indiana and how his offense only mustered 10 points in the 13-10 loss.
There’s also no doubt Sayin has been waiting to face Indiana again since that disappointing December night, when he managed a pedestrian 258 yards passing with 1 touchdown and 1 interception. Sayin’s TD-to-INT ratio this year is stunningly similar to Hoover’s, with Sayin also tossing 17 TDs to go with 2 interceptions. He’s thrown for more yards (1,772) than Hoover in the same number of games, and his completion percentage (71.2) is slightly better.
Sayin’s QBR is slightly lower than Hoover’s at 87.1, but it’s still stellar, ranking 7th in the country. He can’t get his revenge on Fernando Mendoza, who is in the NFL, but Sayin can get a measure of payback on an Indiana program that proved Ohio State was beatable last year on its own way to ultimate glory.
Or Hoover can have the loudest say in his first foray into the Big Ten rivalry that suddenly means the most.
