The 1979 Indiana Hoosiers football team represented the Indiana Hoosiers in the 1979 Big Ten Conference football season. The Hoosiers played their home games at Memorial Stadium in Bloomington, Indiana. The team was coached by Lee Corso, in his seventh year as head coach of the Hoosiers. The Hoosiers participated in the Holiday Bowl, in a post-season matchup against BYU. The Hoosiers won, 38–37.

In the Old Oaken Bucket, the Hoosiers lost to Purdue by a score of 37–21.

Date	Opponent	Site	Result	Attendance	Source
September 8	at Iowa	Kinnick Stadium Iowa City, IA	W 30–26	59,780	[1]
September 15	Vanderbilt*	Memorial Stadium Bloomington, IN	W 44–13	30,685	[2]
September 22	Kentucky*	Memorial Stadium Bloomington, IN (rivalry)	W 18–10	45,920	[3]
September 29	Colorado*	Memorial Stadium Bloomington, IN	L 16–17	36,160	[4]
October 6	at Wisconsin	Camp Randall Stadium Madison, WI	W 3–0	74,188	[5]
October 13	at No. 8 Ohio State	Ohio Stadium Columbus, OH	L 6–47	87,521	[6]
October 20	Northwestern	Memorial Stadium Bloomington, IN	W 30–0	30,086	[7]
October 27	at No. 10 Michigan	Michigan Stadium Ann Arbor, MI	L 21–27	104,832	[8]
November 3	Minnesota	Memorial Stadium Bloomington, IN	W 42–24	35,507	[9]
November 10	at Illinois	Memorial Stadium Champaign, IL (rivalry)	W 45–14	30,874	[10]
November 17	No. 12 Purdue	Memorial Stadium Bloomington, IN (Old Oaken Bucket)	L 21–37	53,202	[11]
December 21	vs. No. 9 BYU*	San Diego Stadium San Diego, CA (Holiday Bowl)	W 38–37	52,200	[12]
*Non-conference game Homecoming Rankings from AP Poll released prior to the game

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On October 22, 2016, former Indiana University coach and current ESPN College Football analyst Lee Corso described the game on College Gameday. He said at halftime he told the Hoosiers (who were losing the game 26–3) to not bother coming out for the 2nd half unless they were prepared to win the game. Indiana would then go on to win the game 30–26. This was also the debut for Iowa's new head coach Hayden Fry.

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• Tim Clifford, Chicago Tribune Silver Football

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