All-Indiana College Football Event

[Uindy18]

Hello all,

I wanted to get some input on an idea I have had for awhile now. In my home state of Indiana, we have 20 college football teams across FBS/FCS/D2/D3/NAIA, and I like the idea of bringing all 20 teams to Indianapolis for one crazy weekend of football, with HS games on Friday I realize this would be a huge undertaking, but Indianapolis would be the perfect place for it. There would be games held at Lucas Oil Stadium (home of the Indianapolis Colts), Victory Field (Home of the Triple A affiliate of the Pittsburgh Pirates, the Indianapolis Indians), and Carroll Stadium (home of IUPUI's track and soccer teams) all in downtown Indianapolis. Matchups would look something like this:

Blue=Indiana schools
Red= non-Indiana schools
Pink=High school

Day/Time	Lucas Oil Stadium	Victory Field	Carroll Stadium
Friday Night	HS Game 1	HS Game 2	HS Game 3
Saturday 11 am	Valparaiso vs. Non-Conference NCAA DI FCS 1(ex. Eastern Kentucky)	Trine vs. Hanover	Taylor vs. Non-Conference NAIA 1 (ex. Thomas More)
Saturday 4 pm	Indiana State vs. Butler	Saint Francis vs. Non-Conference NAIA 3 (ex. Kentucky Christian)	Indiana Wesleyan vs. Non-Conference NAIA 3 (ex. Campbellsville)
Saturday 8 pm	Purdue vs. Notre Dame	Marian vs. Non-Conference NAIA 4 (ex. The Cumberlands)	DePauw vs. Rose-Hulman
Sunday Noon	Indianapolis vs. Non-Conference NCAA Division II 1 (ex. Ferris State)	Wabash vs. Franklin	Anderson vs. Non-Conference NCAA DIII 1 (ex. Centre)
Sunday 5 pm	Indiana vs. Ball State	Manchester vs. Non-Conference NCAA DIII 2 (ex. Adrian)	Open if venue shift needed for NFL/USL/MILB Schedule

Obviously, this is all conjecture, but I really would love to see something like this. My alumnus, Indianapolis, would get a rare opportunity to host a non-conference game in Lucas Oil. I also love the idea of getting as many full Indiana matchups as possible, even though the avoidance of conference conflicts makes that much harder. I also avoided crossing NAIA teams with NCAA D2/D3/FCS, just for the sake of consistency. Thoughts? Could other states have the facilities to do this all in one city? Too ambitious? Other General Thoughts?

[wssuram]

Hello all,

I wanted to get some input on an idea I have had for awhile now. In my home state of Indiana, we have 20 college football teams across FBS/FCS/D2/D3/NAIA, and I like the idea of bringing all 20 teams to Indianapolis for one crazy weekend of football, with HS games on Friday I realize this would be a huge undertaking, but Indianapolis would be the perfect place for it. There would be games held at Lucas Oil Stadium (home of the Indianapolis Colts), Victory Field (Home of the Triple A affiliate of the Pittsburgh Pirates, the Indianapolis Indians), and Carroll Stadium (home of IUPUI's track and soccer teams) all in downtown Indianapolis. Matchups would look something like this:

Blue=Indiana schools
Red= non-Indiana schools
Pink=High school

Day/Time	Lucas Oil Stadium	Victory Field	Carroll Stadium
Friday Night	HS Game 1	HS Game 2	HS Game 3
Saturday 11 am	Valparaiso vs. Non-Conference NCAA DI FCS 1(ex. Eastern Kentucky)	Trine vs. Hanover	Taylor vs. Non-Conference NAIA 1 (ex. Thomas More)
Saturday 4 pm	Indiana State vs. Butler	Saint Francis vs. Non-Conference NAIA 3 (ex. Kentucky Christian)	Indiana Wesleyan vs. Non-Conference NAIA 3 (ex. Campbellsville)
Saturday 8 pm	Purdue vs. Notre Dame	Marian vs. Non-Conference NAIA 4 (ex. The Cumberlands)	DePauw vs. Rose-Hulman
Sunday Noon	Indianapolis vs. Non-Conference NCAA Division II 1 (ex. Ferris State)	Wabash vs. Franklin	Anderson vs. Non-Conference NCAA DIII 1 (ex. Centre)
Sunday 5 pm	Indiana vs. Ball State	Manchester vs. Non-Conference NCAA DIII 2 (ex. Adrian)	Open if venue shift needed for NFL/USL/MILB Schedule

Obviously, this is all conjecture, but I really would love to see something like this. My alumnus, Indianapolis, would get a rare opportunity to host a non-conference game in Lucas Oil. I also love the idea of getting as many full Indiana matchups as possible, even though the avoidance of conference conflicts makes that much harder. I also avoided crossing NAIA teams with NCAA D2/D3/FCS, just for the sake of consistency. Thoughts? Could other states have the facilities to do this all in one city? Too ambitious? Other General Thoughts?

Charlotte, NC has Bank of America Stadium (Carolina Panthers), Jerey Richardson Stadium on the campus of UNC Charlotte and Memorial Stadium (hosts college/HS football as well as professional soccer).

[SW_Mustang]

I like sporting event festivals. Going to a game is usually a one-off deal, so combining multiple games into a day or a weekend is always a blast. We have a big hockey festival in Minnesota every year, though it's usually split between 2-3 different towns. The "host city," the feature college game, and St. Paul (Wild).

I do like your idea, it's very logical - but here is a couple changes that I would make:

-Combine all of those NAIA and DIII teams that need an OOC game.
-Move Ball State to Valpo
-Move Purdue to Indiana
-Bring in a big rival to play Notre Dame (Michigan?)
-Stack the HS games to run all day Friday
-Move all the Sunday games to the open time slots made up by the previous changes on Friday and Saturday
-Cap the entire weekend off with the Colts at home. No other games on Sunday.

UIndy would retain it's OOC opponent.

Here's what this would do:

-For the smaller schools, playing an in-state team is going to be better in this setting. It's a "home game" for both teams, so attendance is higher.
-Ball State v. Valpo = FBS v. FCS, and I think those are the right two teams for that matchup. It would be a cool curiosity at the event.
-Purdue v. Indiana is obviously Big 10 v. Big 10. Can't go wrong there.
-Notre Dame is the "biggest" program in the state, is it not? They need the big Saturday Primetime Matchup that's going to draw a national audience.

The "losers" in this situation are obviously the HS teams not being able to play specifically on Friday night which is the big allure of HS football. That being said, I think most players would be willing to sacrifice that for one day in order to play on the biggest stage in their home state. I could be wrong, but I believe I was told that these facilities typically rent by the day (or at least the Metrodome did), and so it would be most cost effective to run games all day at one place.

Additional ideas:

-Indiana has six football classes, could we take Thursday and run three more games at Lucas Oil Stadium?
-Does Indiana have JUCO? If so, find another spot (Butler?) just to run JUCO games. Might as well, right?

I obviously don't know the ins and outs of Indiana football, but this is how I'd structure it.

[badboyblynn]

Have thought about a NAIA-D3 Challenge in Iowa. American Rivers Conference has Central and Wartburg both ranked; Coe & Dubuque over .500 against #1Morningside, #3 Grand View, #12 Northwestern and #24 Dordt of the NAIA. should be good contests, though I lean toward the NAIA schools .

Any other states with options?

[SW_Mustang]

We could do this easily in Minnesota, though I would have Eagan participate because they have the TCO Performance Center (Vikings Practice Facility). We would have to add a fourth site though to fit everything in, I think. I don't have the fancy table making skills, so this post will be kinda bulky. Games are organized in the order of which they would be playing:

Friday:

-US Bank Stadium - 4 HS Games
-TCF Bank Stadium - 3 HS Games
-TCO Performance Center - 3 JUCO Games. Vermillion v. M State, MN West v. Mesabi Range, Central Lakes v. Rochester.
-UST - 1 JUCO Game. Fon Du Lac v. Itasca, 2 DIII Games. Crown v. Martin Luther, Carleton v. St. Olaf.

Saturday:

-US Bank Stadium - Winona St. v. Augustana/USF/Northern (DII), St. John's v. St. Thomas (DIII/FCS), Northwestern v. Morris (DIII)
-TCF Bank Stadium - Bemidji v. Concordia-St. Paul (DII), MSU v. Duluth (DII), Minnesota v. Wisconsin/Iowa (FBS)
-TCO Performance Center - SMSU v. Moorhead (DII), Macalaster v. Scholastica (DIII), Gustavus v. Hamline (DIII)
-UST - Concordia - Moorhead v. U-W Whitewater/Eau Claire (DIII OOC), Bethel vs. Augsburg (DIII)

Sunday:

-US Bank Stadium - Vikings (NFL)

Here are some notes - sorted by day:

Friday:

-HS gets one game per class. Teams are selected based on a criteria of fan support, program strength, and program history. The Vikings Program of the Year (Bird Island/Olivia) gets the first spot. I don't know enough about MN HS to pick the other teams, but I would say Marshall v. Metro/Suburbs team and Eden Prairie v. Wayzata/CDH are two matchups that would be selected.

-I originally included ND Science in the JUCO section as they are a part of the MCAC, but decided against it since they are not a Minnesota team and we'd need another OOS team to even things out (thanks Ridgewater, sorry Laker). The JUCO matchups were chosen at random except for CLC/Rochester.

-Carleton v. St. Olaf probably wouldn't ever happen outside of Northfield, but it gets a "primetime" spot for this experiment. I'll explain why I made some of these choices below.

Saturday:

-The MN side of the NSIC has an odd number of teams, so we need to bring in a team from out-of-state. I picked three options based on fan support/program strength. The rest of the D2 games are mostly picked at random, aside from MSU/UMD.

-UST is currently DIII but will be moving up to FCS - but SJU is still the best opponent for them based on my logic. It also eliminates the need to bring in a PFL team to play UST (probably Drake). It would be a fairly big game, so I have it as the appetizer to the Minnesota game. They aren't competing against each other for viewership this way. The alternative is to have UST play Drake and move SJU down into the C-M game, bumping UW-W

-If I had control over this, I'd actually have the Gophers face NDSU. Dumpster fires are fun sometimes, especially if they can draw an audience. The Badgers or Hawkeyes are more likely the better candidates though.

Sunday:

-That's pretty self-explanatory. Vikings v. whoever they are scheduled to play. Ideally it would be Chicago or Green Bay, but realistically the NFL probably doesn't care.

Scheduling logic:

-These types of events are really based on fan attendance. They take a lot of planning and coordination, and the payoff is attendance. When the people don't show, these types of things shut down quickly. Keeping that in mind, I tried to account for that in my scheduling as best as I could though I am not knowledgeable on every one of these teams. That's why you have Crown/MLC on Friday in the middle time slot, and why NW/Morris gets the "primetime" slot next to the Gophers. Carleton/St. Olaf - I think - would be an interesting enough game to have it as the closer on Friday and might draw a few fans, though it would be competing with some big HS games. - if any of that makes any sense whatsoever.

FAQ:

Q: Do you have a lot of time on your hands to come up with this wall of text?
A: Yes I do, today anyway.

[purduefan11]

I like sporting event festivals. Going to a game is usually a one-off deal, so combining multiple games into a day or a weekend is always a blast. We have a big hockey festival in Minnesota every year, though it's usually split between 2-3 different towns. The "host city," the feature college game, and St. Paul (Wild).

I do like your idea, it's very logical - but here is a couple changes that I would make:

-Combine all of those NAIA and DIII teams that need an OOC game.
-Move Ball State to Valpo
-Move Purdue to Indiana
-Bring in a big rival to play Notre Dame (Michigan?)
-Stack the HS games to run all day Friday
-Move all the Sunday games to the open time slots made up by the previous changes on Friday and Saturday
-Cap the entire weekend off with the Colts at home. No other games on Sunday.

UIndy would retain it's OOC opponent.

Here's what this would do:

-For the smaller schools, playing an in-state team is going to be better in this setting. It's a "home game" for both teams, so attendance is higher.
-Ball State v. Valpo = FBS v. FCS, and I think those are the right two teams for that matchup. It would be a cool curiosity at the event.
-Purdue v. Indiana is obviously Big 10 v. Big 10. Can't go wrong there.
-Notre Dame is the "biggest" program in the state, is it not? They need the big Saturday Primetime Matchup that's going to draw a national audience.

The "losers" in this situation are obviously the HS teams not being able to play specifically on Friday night which is the big allure of HS football. That being said, I think most players would be willing to sacrifice that for one day in order to play on the biggest stage in their home state. I could be wrong, but I believe I was told that these facilities typically rent by the day (or at least the Metrodome did), and so it would be most cost effective to run games all day at one place.

Additional ideas:

-Indiana has six football classes, could we take Thursday and run three more games at Lucas Oil Stadium?
-Does Indiana have JUCO? If so, find another spot (Butler?) just to run JUCO games. Might as well, right?

I obviously don't know the ins and outs of Indiana football, but this is how I'd structure it.

Afew follow ups:

• Purdue and IU will likely never take the bucket game off campus, and would mess with Big Ten home and home scheduling
• schools outside of local rivalries do not like scheduling butler and Valpo, they never seem to play any fbs at all, Indiana state makes the exception for historical reasons and FCC to fcs
• i like the colts idea but NFL may not wanna play ball with scheduling.
• no we do not have any juco football programs
• notre dame is biggest probably, any I think a neutral site matchup with Purdue or IU in alternating years will keep them in the festival and keep national tv people happy.
• I do not like crossing NCAA and NAIA because schools seem too only want those matchups out of desperation.
• The high school games would be tough all Friday because those kids are still in school and IHSAA frowns heavily on kids missing class under any circumstances

[purduefan11]

We could do this easily in Minnesota, though I would have Eagan participate because they have the TCO Performance Center (Vikings Practice Facility). We would have to add a fourth site though to fit everything in, I think. I don't have the fancy table making skills, so this post will be kinda bulky. Games are organized in the order of which they would be playing:

Friday:

-US Bank Stadium - 4 HS Games
-TCF Bank Stadium - 3 HS Games
-TCO Performance Center - 3 JUCO Games. Vermillion v. M State, MN West v. Mesabi Range, Central Lakes v. Rochester.
-UST - 1 JUCO Game. Fon Du Lac v. Itasca, 2 DIII Games. Crown v. Martin Luther, Carleton v. St. Olaf.

Saturday:

-US Bank Stadium - Winona St. v. Augustana/USF/Northern (DII), St. John's v. St. Thomas (DIII/FCS), Northwestern v. Morris (DIII)
-TCF Bank Stadium - Bemidji v. Concordia-St. Paul (DII), MSU v. Duluth (DII), Minnesota v. Wisconsin/Iowa (FBS)
-TCO Performance Center - SMSU v. Moorhead (DII), Macalaster v. Scholastica (DIII), Gustavus v. Hamline (DIII)
-UST - Concordia - Moorhead v. U-W Whitewater/Eau Claire (DIII OOC), Bethel vs. Augsburg (DIII)

Sunday:

-US Bank Stadium - Vikings (NFL)

Here are some notes - sorted by day:

Friday:

-HS gets one game per class. Teams are selected based on a criteria of fan support, program strength, and program history. The Vikings Program of the Year (Bird Island/Olivia) gets the first spot. I don't know enough about MN HS to pick the other teams, but I would say Marshall v. Metro/Suburbs team and Eden Prairie v. Wayzata/CDH are two matchups that would be selected.

-I originally included ND Science in the JUCO section as they are a part of the MCAC, but decided against it since they are not a Minnesota team and we'd need another OOS team to even things out (thanks Ridgewater, sorry Laker). The JUCO matchups were chosen at random except for CLC/Rochester.

-Carleton v. St. Olaf probably wouldn't ever happen outside of Northfield, but it gets a "primetime" spot for this experiment. I'll explain why I made some of these choices below.

Saturday:

-The MN side of the NSIC has an odd number of teams, so we need to bring in a team from out-of-state. I picked three options based on fan support/program strength. The rest of the D2 games are mostly picked at random, aside from MSU/UMD.

-UST is currently DIII but will be moving up to FCS - but SJU is still the best opponent for them based on my logic. It also eliminates the need to bring in a PFL team to play UST (probably Drake). It would be a fairly big game, so I have it as the appetizer to the Minnesota game. They aren't competing against each other for viewership this way. The alternative is to have UST play Drake and move SJU down into the C-M game, bumping UW-W

-If I had control over this, I'd actually have the Gophers face NDSU. Dumpster fires are fun sometimes, especially if they can draw an audience. The Badgers or Hawkeyes are more likely the better candidates though.

Sunday:

-That's pretty self-explanatory. Vikings v. whoever they are scheduled to play. Ideally it would be Chicago or Green Bay, but realistically the NFL probably doesn't care.

Scheduling logic:

-These types of events are really based on fan attendance. They take a lot of planning and coordination, and the payoff is attendance. When the people don't show, these types of things shut down quickly. Keeping that in mind, I tried to account for that in my scheduling as best as I could though I am not knowledgeable on every one of these teams. That's why you have Crown/MLC on Friday in the middle time slot, and why NW/Morris gets the "primetime" slot next to the Gophers. Carleton/St. Olaf - I think - would be an interesting enough game to have it as the closer on Friday and might draw a few fans, though it would be competing with some big HS games. - if any of that makes any sense whatsoever.

FAQ:

Q: Do you have a lot of time on your hands to come up with this wall of text?
A: Yes I do, today anyway.

A few more follow ups:

• I love Minnesota vs. NDSU. That would be an interesting neutral site opener. And saves from messing with the big ten schedule.
• Being a Minnesota guy, did you hear much about butler vs. ndsu at target field last year? I always thought that was an odd decision.
• Otherwise, just a little jealous that Minnesota has more of a juco precence than we do in Indiana. We have like 2 I think and neither play football as I remember

[SW_Mustang]

A few more follow ups:

• I love Minnesota vs. NDSU. That would be an interesting neutral site opener. And saves from messing with the big ten schedule.
• Being a Minnesota guy, did you hear much about butler vs. ndsu at target field last year? I always thought that was an odd decision.
• Otherwise, just a little jealous that Minnesota has more of a juco precence than we do in Indiana. We have like 2 I think and neither play football as I remember

I love FBS/FCS matchups. I doubt the Gophers would do it, but it would be a massive game now that they have become somewhat competitive.

I did know it was happening because the Twins advertised it heavily in-between innings, and the press did cover it a bit - but it didn't get any real "special attention." That game was chosen 100% for NDSU, they have a lot of fans in the Twin Cities. It also helped that Trey Lance was the QB, though he wasn't as well known until that game.

We are really fortunate to have JUCO, though I don't know how much longer we will have it. Our conference, the MCAC, just lost three teams due to discontinuation in the last 2-3 seasons.

[SW_Mustang]

Afew follow ups:

• Purdue and IU will likely never take the bucket game off campus, and would mess with Big Ten home and home scheduling
• schools outside of local rivalries do not like scheduling butler and Valpo, they never seem to play any fbs at all, Indiana state makes the exception for historical reasons and FCC to fcs
• i like the colts idea but NFL may not wanna play ball with scheduling.
• no we do not have any juco football programs
• notre dame is biggest probably, any I think a neutral site matchup with Purdue or IU in alternating years will keep them in the festival and keep national tv people happy.
• I do not like crossing NCAA and NAIA because schools seem too only want those matchups out of desperation.
• The high school games would be tough all Friday because those kids are still in school and IHSAA frowns heavily on kids missing class under any circumstances

I figured Indiana football was a little more intricate than my assessment, haha.

We have Hockey Day here in MN, and it's always capped off by the Wild. It's very much an apples to oranges comparison, but I think it would be really cool if the Colts could do the same.

[Uindy18]

I figured Indiana football was a little more intricate than my assessment, haha.

We have Hockey Day here in MN, and it's always capped off by the Wild. It's very much an apples to oranges comparison, but I think it would be really cool if the Colts could do the same.

Ya, my original idea of doing it came from basketball day in Indiana where they play 24 hours of HS basketball capped with the Pacers usually capping off with a matchup with the Hornets or someone no one would go to otherwise

[Uindy18]

I love FBS/FCS matchups. I doubt the Gophers would do it, but it would be a massive game now that they have become somewhat competitive.

I did know it was happening because the Twins advertised it heavily in-between innings, and the press did cover it a bit - but it didn't get any real "special attention." That game was chosen 100% for NDSU, they have a lot of fans in the Twin Cities. It also helped that Trey Lance was the QB, though he wasn't as well known until that game.

We are really fortunate to have JUCO, though I don't know how much longer we will have it. Our conference, the MCAC, just lost three teams due to discontinuation in the last 2-3 seasons.

I really felt like they ended up with Butler for that matchup because some other school backed out. Butler and Valpo with no scholarships at D1 is kinda weird,. You will hear more from them in the next few years with Saint Thomas going D1 in the Pioneer League