Bucket Week has arrived, and it’s win or go home for Indiana football.

For a second consecutive season, the Hoosiers head into their annual rivalry game against the Purdue Boilermakers one win short of the six-win automatic bowl eligibility requirement. IU was able to defeat PU on the road last season under identical circumstances and will be the home team when the programs meet at noon Saturday at Memorial Stadium.

“It's the biggest game in our season," senior center Wes Rogers said. "We know they're not just going to roll over. They're going to be playing hard, and it's a rivalry game. Records don't matter right now. They're going to be coming out and trying to kick our ass."

Purdue leads the all-time football series between the programs 72-40-6, but Indiana has been the dominant team during the time current seniors have been on campus. The Hoosiers have won three consecutive games against the Boilermakers, including a 54-36 win in West Lafayette a year ago that sent IU to the Pinstripe Bowl.

Since Indiana and Purdue first met in 1891—a 60-0 Boilermaker win in West Lafayette—IU has only once before won four consecutive games. That came from 1944-47 at the closing stretch of eight years’ worth of Hoosier dominance where IU came out on top seven times in eight tries.

Indiana downplayed any big picture importance when addressing the media Monday, saying all that mattered was this year's game. The history and implications, players said, aren't nearly as important as picking up a Bucket win Saturday.

"We have to focus everything, all our chips we've got now, in this one basket," fifth-year senior receiver Mitchell Paige said. "This is all we've got left. It's the most important thing."

While Indiana has its postseason life at play, and it’s worth nothing IU might also have a chance to get into a bowl with five wins thanks to its APR scores, Purdue only has the Bucket left on the line.

The Boilermakers enter the final weekend of play 3-8 overall under the leadership of interim head coach Gerad Parker, who took over the program from Darrell Hazell after his firing on Oct. 16. They're expected to hire a new head coach shortly and enter a new era of Purdue football with the future largely up in the air.

Indiana's entered Purdue week with only the Old Oaken Bucket left to play for on four occasions since Kevin Wilson took over coaching duties. He knows what it's like to find motivation in a rivalry game, and he said he expects the Boilermakers to do the same.

"We're expecting a great challenge," Wilson said. "We're going to have to have, we told our team, our best week."

For Purdue, a win would give the program momentum heading into the offseason and perhaps ruin Indiana's. Should the Hoosiers pull off a victory as a three-score favorite already, they'll head to a second consecutive postseason bowl for the first time since 1990-91.

Wilson said that he hasn't tried to hype up the "win or go home" narrative in practice, instead saying there should be enough motivation in the Bucket game alone.

Win that Bucket, Wilson said, and everything else will take care of itself.

"All we talked about is this team and this week," Wilson said. "Somebody this week is going to earn that bucket. This team or the rival."

Indiana has 14 commits in the 2017 class already but is still looking to add at least half a dozen more players.

Wilson said he's still looking to add a quarterback, multiple wide receivers, a defensive lineman, an offensive tackle, a running back and a defensive back of some sort before signing day.

That, of course, is a fluid list. Much of that will depend on what players who have the option to return to school or leave for graduation or the NFL choose to do.