It looked like 2025 was going to be the year that Indiana men’s soccer finally captured their ninth national championship.
The Hoosiers began the season 6-0-1 in the opening non-conference slate. However, Todd Yeagley’s squad struggled once Big Ten play arrived in mid-September, finishing a disappointing 5-5-0 in conference games and missing the Big Ten Tournament altogether.
The late-season struggles for the cream and crimson culminated in a one-and-done playoff exit at the hands of Saint Louis.
Entering his 17th season as head coach, Yeagley continues to carry on the legacy of his father, Jerry Yeagley, whom the field at Bill Armstrong Stadium is named after.
Despite Indiana’s incredible track record over the last half-century, the program is currently in its longest title drought, having gone 13 seasons and counting since their last championship in 2012.
As usual, the Hoosiers enter the 2026 season with national championship aspirations. Beginning the season ranked No. 22, the Hoosiers return several key starters from 2025, including forward Collins Oduro, along with defensive anchors Josh Maher and Alex Barger. The latter two will serve as co-captains for this upcoming season.
Indiana lost several significant pieces from 2025, including 16-goal scorer Palmer Ault, who departed for St. Louis City SC. Holden Brown, IU’s main goalkeeper, also departed after starting 14 matches a season ago.
To compensate for those losses, Indiana brought in an incredibly strong transfer class, ranked No. 1 in the country by TopDrawerSoccer. Headlining the incoming transfer class is forward Stephane Njike, who was a First-team All-Big Ten selection in his only season at Maryland.
Three Hoosiers were named to the Big Ten Players to Watch list for the 2026 season. Indiana’s success this season heavily depends on these players performing the way they are expected to.
Players to Watch
Stephane Njike
The Paris native comes to Bloomington after spending one season at Big Ten foe Maryland. After winning NEC Rookie of the Year at Long Island University in 2024, Njike proved in 2025 that he can excel at the highest level of collegiate soccer.
Indiana is already the fourth collegiate stop for the junior forward, as he spent the spring of 2024 at Marshall University in West Virginia.
Njike is coming off a 21-point season with the Terrapins, registering seven goals and seven assists. His seven goals placed sixth among all Big Ten players. Indiana witnessed firsthand what the speedster is capable of, as he scored the game-winning goal in a decisive 3-2 victory over the Hoosiers last October.
The Hoosiers should feel very confident with their forward group heading into the season, and Njike should be the leading candidate to replace Ault’s point production. Containing the Indiana attack will be easier said than done for opponents this upcoming season, and the French forward’s presence will be a massive reason why.
Collins Oduro
Entering his fourth and likely final season as a Hoosier, Collins Oduro is a name soccer fans won’t be forgetting anytime soon. The senior forward from Bibani, Ghana was one of 27 players featured on the preseason watch list for the MAC Hermann Trophy, which is given to the nation’s top player.
In his high school career, Oduro was team captain of the Right to Dream Academy team in Ghana, he led the team to the title at the 2022 Gothia Cup in Sweden, one of the biggest youth tournaments in the world. Oduro moved from Ghana to the United States his senior year of high school. The 5-foot-7 forward would later earn Pennsylvania Gatorade Player of the Year for 2022-2023.
During his time at Indiana so far, Oduro has scored 12 goals, 13 assists and 27 points. He was ranked by Top Drawer Soccer in the preseason at No. 57 for their top 100 list.
Josh Maher
A third-year defender out of Caseyville, Illinois, Maher is one of three Hoosiers on both the United Soccer Coaches as well as Big Ten Players to Watch lists.
Maher has deep roots with the Indiana program, as in 2024 he became the third Maher brother to earn Big Ten All-Freshman Team Selection in Bloomington after Jack in 2018 and Joey in 2020-21.
Last season, Maher missed three matches in August due to injury but bounced back nicely as he was named Big Ten Defensive Player of the Week in September and was selected to the United Soccer Coaches third-team All-North Region.
Because of the nature of his position, Maher’s presence might not be noticed in the stat sheet. That being said, Maher should provide veteran leadership in the defensive half of the field as the Hoosiers look to take a leap forward defensively this season.
Schedule Preview
It isn’t as strong as in years past, but Indiana should once again be challenged in the non-conference, something that has been a staple of Yeagley’s tenure in Bloomington.
Home matches against Denver on Sept. 7 and Kentucky on Oct. 6 highlight the slate, as both teams are listed in the receiving votes section of the United Soccer Coaches Preseason Top 25 Poll.
The Hoosiers also host Notre Dame to open the regular season and travel to Louisville to face the Cardinals in their lone road contest in non-conference play.
Additional home matches against Evansville, Butler, Cal Poly and Hanover round out the out-of-conference slate.
Meanwhile, the Big Ten schedule sets up fairly favorably for Indiana.
Both the defending national champion Washington Huskies (preseason No. 1 team in the country), as well as the Maryland Terrapins (preseason No. 7), will head to Bloomington this season. Those are the two teams picked to finish ahead of the Hoosiers in the Big Ten, and Indiana hosting both of those games at Bill Armstrong Stadium will be crucial in the pursuit of a 19th regular season conference title.
Other Big Ten home contests include Penn State, Northwestern and Michigan State, three of the bottom four teams in the conference in the preseason poll.
Indiana will open up conference play on the road at Michigan, and will also travel to Wisconsin, Rutgers, Ohio State and UCLA.
The 2025 season was an anomaly for the Hoosiers, who often start slow amidst a challenging non-conference gauntlet before turning on the jets against familiar foes in conference play. Last season was the opposite of that, so it will be interesting to see how Indiana responds to its late-season struggles it experienced a year ago.
If the aforementioned ninth championship is in the cards, the Hoosiers will need to play their best soccer in the final weeks of the season.
