As winter drug on, the sheet of paper hanging in Bloomington South athletic director's office showing the 2026 football schedule remained nearly half empty. Football coach Gabe Johnson, in charge of putting his schedule together as an assistant AD, faced far more challenges than usual in getting this year's nine-game slate put together once the breakup of Conference Indiana was complete. Teams that wanted to stay on the schedule stayed: Bloomington North, Martinsville, Terre Haute North, Columbus North, Brebeuf Jesuit and Center Grove. Some juggling had to be done, but that left three spots to fill in awkward dates. Most bigger schools are locked into conferences. More: VOTE Who is the Herald-Times Preseason Offensive Football Player of the Year?
"The hard part about that is, not everyone is in our situation," Johnson said. "You have to find teams your size. It's not going to do us any good to play a 1A school, not that any 1A school would want to play us. You have to find the right team with a week open. There were teams with a week open, but it wasn't the right team." Thanks to some connections and some patience, Johnson finally found the last of his nine opponents this summer. A full schedule means everything as Johnson learned during the COVID years. "From a coaching standpoint, I know what it does in terms of preparation," Johnson said. "The kids just want to play. You don't want to be that team without a full schedule. Like in 2020. We just didn't get better. I think we played one game in a month. No one liked it. It was boring. We tried to fabricate excitement and intensity, but you've got to have something to shoot for every week, I'm convinced of that now." At the same time, Johnson wanted to put together a schedule that would push the Panthers each week knowing the challenges the postseason will bring. "We came into this year, I didn't want to rush it. I didn't want to jump right at teams," Johnson said. "I wanted to see if we could get the best possible scenario for us and I'd say right now we have the best possible scenario. "It's not ideal to go travel four and a half hours to play a team in Ohio, but I know what it's like to not play a team and I don't like it. I don't like the preparation. I don't like the week of practice. I don't like what it does for us to get ready for the tournament. To me, it was not even an option to not play the game."
Road trip! The first domino to fall was Bloomington North's announcement that it would be moving to the Mid-State Conference to replace Greenwood. South and others had also been asked to apply, but in the end, just one invite was extended. With that, the Terre Haute schools packed up and moved to the Sagamore Conference, leaving South, Southport and Columbus North to fend for themselves. All three will play independently this year, but only the Panthers are locked into a conference in 2027 when they'll join the Hoosier Hills Conference. With that in mind, the only solution to keep the city rivalry game going was move it to opening weekend for the first time since 1980. Friday's 7 p.m. matchup will be the first time it's a non-conference game since 1982. Martinsville and Terre Haute North stayed in weeks 2 and 3, Columbus North wanted to move to Week 6 and Brebeuf Jesuit and Center Grove stayed in weeks 8-9. That left three games to find. The first date Johnson filled was a doozy: a trip to Ironton, Ohio, a small city on the Ohio River with a small school of around 450 but a state champ just two years ago and now on probation for a history of recruiting players. It's nearly five hours away, so the game is being played on a Saturday (Oct. 3) at 3 p.m. so the team can make it a one-day trip. "I got tired of looking in Indiana and I didn't want to wait," he said. "So I started looking across the border. It was one where they actually contacted me. I can't remember who, but I was talking to someone in Indiana who knew one of their coaches. I had actually reached out to a couple teams in Kentucky and Ohio and it just didn't match up. "He reached out and my thinking was, let me see if I can get them to come here. Their home games average about 10,000 fans and it's not much bigger than Linton. They've got dudes. So we need to go on an extended road trip and be tested hard. We know it's going to be a tremendous challenge and I want our kids to go compete." It will be the fourth team from Ohio that South has faced, beating Cincinnati Moeller in 1994 and Dayton Meadowdale in 1991 and falling to Massillon in 1992.
The waiting game The other two dates remained up in the air even as two strong possibilities, 4A Muncie Central and 5A Greenfield-Central, were reluctant. Muncie Central (6-5) had its first winning record since 2016 last year with all four regular season losses to teams that won sectional titles. The Bearcats were forced to find three new opponents two years ago when West Lafayette Harrison, McCutcheon and Logansport left the North Central Conference. Coach Travis Nolting has lifted the Cougars from 2-9 and 3-5 to winning records the past five seasons. But the Panthers fall right into the middle of a stretch that includes the toughest teams in the Hoosier Heritage Conference: Pendleton Heights, Yorktown and defending 5A champ New Palestine. "I approached them early," Johnson said. "At first, their answer was 'No.' So I let them sit on it. 'OK, I'll let them wait a month and approach them if they've not found anyone and see if they'd be more susceptible. Sure enough, I reached back out. 'Yeah, we'll play.' Muncie will be here, Greenfield we'll go there." Moving forward, South will see the backend of its schedule filled with Hoosier Hills Conference foes Bedford North Lawrence, Columbus East, Floyd Central, Jeffersonville, New Albany and Seymour, leaving just one open spot to keep filled after weeks 1 and 2. More: 'We all own it.' Every senior leads way for Bloomington South football More: Bloomington North football starting fresh with new coach, freshman QB 9 for 9 The novelty of the schedule should make this season interesting in many ways for players, coaches and fans. Many weeks will almost feel like a playoff game against a strange foe. "It's created some excitement," Johnson said. "We get to watch someone new on film, teams we have no history with, so what you see is what you get, no idea who is on their rosters or who is back. So the newness of it. With Bloomington North, we don't know what they're going to run, so how do we adjust in the game. It gives you a jolt of excitement." It's an array of teams and talent, including a few state title contenders, that should push the Panthers the way Johnson intended for a team with its own championship hopes. "The way I see it, at the end of the regular season, I don't know we'll see anyone in the tournament tougher than what we'll see once or twice in the regular season," he said. With no conference title to play for, if South goes 9-0, Johnson promises something to mark the achievement. "If we're still standing after Week 9, I like us to be ready," Johnson said. "It's no fun to try finding games, for sure, but once we thought about it and got around the fact that we would have to travel and play some pretty good teams, that's the deal for this year. So let's play them." This article originally appeared on The Herald-Times: How Bloomington South football put together this year's schedule