INDIANAPOLIS — Indiana football coach Curt Cignetti doesn’t plan to name a starting quarterback before the team’s Week 1 game against FIU.
The quarterback competition that started in the spring between Kurtis Rourke, Tayven Jackson and Tyler Cherry will continue when the Hoosiers open fall camp next week.
Cignetti told reporters at Big Ten Media Days on Thursday that he’s sticking to the blueprint he’s used at his previous stops.
It’s the same approach former IU coach Todd Allen relied on towards the end of his tenure. He didn’t want to give his opponents — the Hoosiers opened 2022 (Illinois) and 2023 (Ohio State) with conference games — any kind of competitive advantage.
“I’ve never seen the value of really naming a starter,” Cignetti said. “Our first year in the Sun Belt, Todd Centeio, who came from Colorado State, we trotted him out for the first snap of the first game, never named a starter and he was Sun Belt Player of the Year.”
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Cignetti might not make things official until Aug. 31, but that doesn’t mean he played coy when discussing the state of the competition and that’s a key difference from his predecessor.
He actually offered his most revealing comments yet about Rourke — the frontrunner for the staring job given his experience — towards the end of his time in front of the microphone at Lucas Oil Stadium.
“I want to promote competition at every position, I’m not necessarily looking to get him beat out cause he had a really good spring,” Cignetti said. “…We went back and watched all the spring cut ups offensively and the more I watched them, the more impressed I was.”
Rourke was a three-year starter at Ohio where he played in 36 games (33 starts) over a five-year span. He won MAC Offensive Player of the Year honors in 2022, but suffered a torn ACL late in the year. The fallout from the injury spilled over into 2023 since Rourke wasn’t able to fully participate in the team’s offseason program as he rehabbed the injury. He threw for 2,207 yards (63.5%) with 11 touchdowns and five interceptions.
Rourke closed out spring practice trending in the right direction — Cignetti said in April he took a “pretty significant step” during camp — and he kept trending in the right direction throughout the summer.
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“I sleep better at night knowing I’ve got a guy like that that’s played that many games,” Cignetti said, on Thursday.
The only other competitor he talked about at any length was Jackson. The Center Grove alum transferred to IU after spending his freshman year at Tennessee. He started five games last season for the Hoosiers and threw for 914 yards (60.9%) with two touchdowns and five interceptions.
He’s the only returning quarterback on the roster from last year’s team.
“I think Tayven has improved, but still needs to keep improving in terms of his preparation and processing and playing a 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 got two young guys we like.”
Michael Niziolek is the Indiana beat reporter for The Bloomington Herald-Times. You can follow him on X @michaelniziolek and read all his coverage by clicking here.
This article originally appeared on The Herald-Times: Curt Cignetti won’t announce starting Indiana football QB before season
