A somewhat startling report two weeks indicated quarterback Kurtis Rourke played the entire 2024 IU football season with a torn ACL.
Reporting through Rourke’s agent Casey Muir, Tom Pelissero of the NFL Network said Rourke was having ACL revision surgery and that “Rourke is believed to have re-torn his ACL in August.”
It seems clear something happened, as Rourke wore a right knee brace throughout the 2024 season, but he did not wear it during the spring.
While acknowledging he couldn’t go in depth on the situation, IU coach Curt Cignetti discussed how things played out with his star quarterback over the last six months.
“He tweaked his knee a little bit in July doing a change of direction drill. We MRI’d it and it was all good. He did wear the brace during fall camp and during the season,” Cignetti told ESPN’s Pete Thamel on the College Gameday podcast.
In another surprising development to the story, Cignetti says Rourke suffered a further setback with his knee ahead of Indiana’s first round CFP matchup at Notre Dame. That came late in the last game of the regular season.
“He did tweak his knee (again) at the end of the Purdue game, a little bit, but not a whole lot was made of it,” Cignetti said. “And then when they went in after the Notre Dame game they found a few things that were not present during the season.
“I give him a lot of credit, he had a great year, obviously. The knee was a concern throughout the season, and I’m glad he got it fixed, and he’ll be good to go for the NFL.”
Rourke also broke his throwing hand thumb during the season and played through that after having surgery and missing one game. He is expected to be chosen in the 2025 NFL Draft.
Despite the injuries, Rourke set the Indiana single-season record for passing touchdowns (29) and produced just the fifth 3,000-yard passing season in program history with 3,042 yards. He finished among the top-10 in single-season total offense (3,007) and is just the seventh IU player to reach 3,000 yard of total offense in a single season.
Rourke led IU to the College Football Playoff, finished No. 9 in the Heisman Trophy balloting, earned second-team All-Big Ten, and was a semifinalist for the Maxwell Award, Walter Camp Award and Davey O’Brien Award.
The only Big Ten quarterback since 2000 to throw for 250 yards and at least 3 touchdown passes in their first three conference road games, Rourke completed 246-of-361 passes for 3,042 yards and 29 touchdown tosses to just five interceptions. He added two rushing touchdowns to account for 31 total scores on the season.
For complete coverage of IU football, GO HERE.
The Daily Hoosier –“Where Indiana fans assemble when they’re not at Assembly”
- You can follow us on Twitter: @daily_hoosier
- Find us on Facebook and Instagram
- Seven ways to support completely free IU coverage at no cost to you.
