Kurtis Rourke was Googling Curt Cignetti before the IU head coach created a national buzz with what has become an iconic line.
You’ve no doubt heard it by now.
“I win. Google me,” Cignetti told the media in December was his message to recruits.
No one has had to Google Cignetti’s ability to win this fall. Off to a 5-0 start at Indiana, his ability to stack wins has become a national story. Everyone knows Cignetti wins right now.
But Rourke wasn’t so sure when he first heard from Cignetti in 2023.
It isn’t clear whether Cignetti told Rourke to Google him, but that’s exactly what the veteran quarterback did upon hearing about the career accomplishments of the new IU head coach.
“The first time I met Coach Cignetti was a FaceTime call a couple days after I entered the transfer portal,” Rourke said on a new edition of BTN’s The Journey. “I remember him just talking about his accolades, talking about how much he won in the past.
“I knew he had success at James Madison, and I had to fact check him.”
No lies were detected.
What Rourke found is a head coach who had never suffered a losing season, winning 77% of his games along the way.
“It seemed so great to be able to win that much. But it was all true,” Rourke said.
Rourke knows about winning too. He was coming off back-to-back 10 win seasons at Ohio University, and didn’t want to suffer a bad season as he tries to elevate his profile ahead of the 2025 NFL Draft.
And the combination of a coach who wins and a quarterback who wins has led to the first Indiana 5-0 start since 1967.
Cignetti and his staff have also coached the last four offensive conference players of the year, all quarterbacks. Rourke won that honor in 2022 in Ohio.
So far, the pair seems like a perfect match.
Rourke has completed a career-high 73.2% of his pass for 1,372 yards with 11 touchdowns.
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