One thing seems certain — Curt Cignetti and his staff do not need multiple seasons to develop high-end quarterbacks.
And in 2024, they don’t even really need to develop anyone into a high-end quarterback.
They believe, and past performance indicates, they likely already have one.
For each of their last four seasons at James Madison, Cignetti, his offensive coordinator Mike Shanahan, and his quarterbacks coach Tino Sunseri, developed four different quarterbacks who produced in a major way.
“Our last four quarterbacks have all been Player of the Year in the league, and they were all different, and they all had their skeptics,” Cignetti said Thursday at Big Ten Media Day. “We’ve done a great job of developing our quarterbacks.”
Cignetti, a former quarterback himself, takes on the responsibility of choosing the quarterbacks who they’ll sign in his program. And early in his first offseason as head coach at Indiana, Cignetti identified Ohio transfer Kurtis Rourke as his top target.
And so far Cignetti’s evaluation of the Canadian sixth-year signal-calling is panning out.
“I thought Rourke was the best available (quarterback in the transfer portal),” Cignetti said. “He’s played a lot of football, won a lot of games, led a lot of two minutes drives for touchdowns, threw a lot of touchdowns passes, protected the ball, player of the year in the league in 2022, got injured, couldn’t really train for 2023, still had a decent year. He’s in great shape now, had a tremendous spring and summer. He knows how to play quarterback.”
Cignetti often preaches production over potential, and Rourke is easily the most experienced player in his quarterback room.
Rourke appeared in 36 career games with 33 starts over five seasons at Ohio (2019-23). He earned Mid-American Conference Offensive Player of the Year and first-team All-MAC as a junior, and second-team All-MAC as a senior.
He has amassed 8,479 career all-purpose yards and accounted for 61 touchdowns (50 passing, 11 rushing), completed 638-of-963 passes for 7,651 yards passing and 50 touchdown passes, and also rushed for 1,240 career yards on 232 carries and 11 touchdowns.
But what about that spring game?
Tayven Jackson started some games for Indiana in 2023. A former 4-star recruit who began his career at Tennessee, Jackson looked like an emerging star when he engineered a second half rally against Louisville last September.
And in April during Indiana’s spring game, Jackson stood out, leading a 90-yard TD drive out of the gate and finishing 12-of-15 throwing for 151 yards.
But Jackson is still young, and he threw an interception in that spring game that was reminiscent of some occasional missteps a season ago. He completed 61% of his throws in 2023 for 914 yards and two scores — but Jackson also had five interceptions.
“I think Tayven Jackson has improved and still needs to keep improving, in terms of his preparation and processing, and playing quarterback at a high level,” Cignetti said. “I’m talking about the mental part of it, and decision making. But he’s made significant progress, and we’ve got two young guys (Tyler Cherry, Alberto Mendoza) we like. I want to promote competition at every position.”
So judging based on Cignetti’s words alone on Thursday, Rourke seems like the clear starter when Indiana’s offense takes the field against Florida International on Aug. 31.
Right?
Probably, but don’t expect him to add much in the way of clarity between now and then.
“I’ve never seen the value of really naming a starter,” Cignetti said.
But the first-year Indiana head coach also isn’t hiding the direction he’s currently leaning.
“I’m not necessarily looking to get him (Rourke) beat out, because he had a very good spring,” Cignetti said. “He didn’t really have the opportunity to show it in the spring game. It’s like the first quarter and a half of the game, you’ve got to have the opportunity to show what you can do. When we went back and watched all of our spring cut-ups offensively, the more I watched him, the more impressed I was.
“I felt like he was the best out there for us. I thought he had a really good spring, a great summer. I sleep better at night knowing I’ve got a guy like that that’s played that many games.”
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