Twenty seven miles of Indiana separate Crawfordsville from Greencastle. Wabash and DePauw have played football against each other since 1890, and since 1932 they have played for a 300 pound locomotive bell donated by the Monon Railroad. It is the sixth most played rivalry in Division III and the twelfth most played in all of college football.
On November 14, 2026, the 132nd Monon Bell Classic will be contested at Ball State’s Scheumann Stadium in Muncie. It is the first time since 1922 that this game will be played anywhere other than Crawfordsville or Greencastle.
Why It Moved
DePauw is building. Last October the university announced an anonymous gift of 80 million dollars for a new Blackstock Stadium and Athletics Performance Center, demolition began in June, and the new building opens in the fall of 2028.
DePauw is hosting its other four home games on a temporary setup at Nick Mourouzis Field, but Monon Bell crowds do not fit a temporary setup. Scheumann Stadium seats 22,500, which is the point. Fans who have never been able to get a ticket to this game can get one for this one.
DePauw is the designated home team and will occupy the home side. Kickoff is just after 1 p.m., general admission tickets are 50 dollars and go on sale in September, and ISC Sports Network streams the game for the sixth straight year.
The Series
Wabash leads all time, 63 wins to 59 with 9 ties. Since the Bell arrived in 1932, the margin is even thinner: 44 to 43 with 6 ties. Ninety four games for the trophy, separated by one.
DePauw holds it right now and has won four in a row, including 41 to 20 at Crawfordsville last November and a 33 to 30 finish in 2023. Before that, Wabash won seven straight from 2009 through 2015, matching the longest streak in the series, which the Little Giants also managed from 1921 to 1927.
The margins are what make it. In 1960, DePauw scored late to pull within one and went for the win rather than the tie, converted, and took it 14 to 13. In 1992 the game ended 17 to 17, and because ties sent the Bell back to its previous owner, Wabash kept it and the hundredth meeting opened with the series split at 45 wins each with 9 ties.
Nine Heists and a Ballad
The Bell has been taken at least nine times. The most celebrated was 1965, when a Wabash student talked his way onto the DePauw campus posing as a visiting official, took careful notes on where the Bell was kept, and sent a second group back that night to collect it. The Bell was returned before kickoff. Wabash then won the game, and the crowd celebrated in sombreros.
In 1967, DePauw students stole the Bell from their own campus and buried it in the north end zone to keep it away from Wabash, then had to dig it out on game day after a freeze.
There is also a ballad, written by DePauw alumni in 1985 and recorded by a member of the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, about a train, two schools and the last game every fall.
What Muncie Changes
Everything except the football. Both teams are in the NCAC, where Wabash was picked third in the 2026 coaches poll and DePauw brings back a repeat All America selection in Robby Ballentine. Alumni telecast parties will run in cities across the country, as they do every November.
A neutral field, a bigger house, and one game separating the two schools in ninety four years of playing for a bell.
Rivalries Run on Fans. Fuel Yours.
In Division III there is no television money and there are no athletic scholarships. The players in this game are students who chose to be there, and 22,500 people are about to watch them.
RallyFuel is a direct way to back them. Through verified, compliant NIL deals, fans can support these athletes directly. Division III athletes can earn from their name, image and likeness just like everyone else, and almost nobody is backing them.
- Back the Little Giants on the Wabash page or the Tigers on the DePauw page, or browse football athletes more widely.
- Put the two programs side by side with the School Rivalry tool.
- Browse every athlete in the North Coast Athletic Conference.
