Who Will be Indiana’s Quarterback in 2025?

Written by: Nate Comp (@NathanComp1)

A year ago at this time, it was unclear who the starting quarterback for Indiana would be. We had to wait until December 14th when that vision became clearer, as Kurtis Rourke announced his commitment to join the Hoosiers for his final year of eligibility.

That worked out quite well.

Now, sitting here today, the Hoosiers find themselves asking a similar question. Who will be our starting quarterback next season?

With National Signing Day now come and past and no high school quarterback having been signed, we know one thing for sure: it will not be a true freshman.

“Well, we have two young quarterbacks in the program that we like: Tyler Cherry and [Alberto] Mendoza,” said Curt Cignetti yesterday about having not signed any quarterback in this year’s high school class. “So, we didn't feel a real need to sign a young quarterback this year.”

Cherry and Mendoza were both a part of Cignetti’s first recruiting class with the Hoosiers last season. Cherry was an addition to the class after Mike Elko left Duke to take the Texas A&M job, and Mendoza was a part of Cignetti’s recruiting class at JMU that he allowed to follow him to Indiana.

There’s another young quarterback on the roster, of course, too. Tayven Jackson still has a few years left of eligibility and has made starts for the Hoosiers in the past two seasons, including filling in for Rourke after his thumb injury this year and leading the Hoosiers to a few victories. Was he not included in Cignetti’s earlier quote purposefully or only because he, as a rising redshirt junior, did not factor into Cignetti’s reasoning for not signing a high school quarterback? Only time will tell.

Cignetti did make it clear, however, that the quarterback depth chart as it stands today is not final; Indiana will pursue a quarterback in the transfer portal this year, just like they did a year ago.

“We will definitely recruit a quarterback out of the portal,” added Cignetti. “In terms of our other needs, I'll let you guys put pen to paper and figure out who is coming back and who we're losing and figure that out on your own.”

So, will the starter next year once again come by way of the transfer portal? Though the portal does not officially open until Monday, the flurry has already begun.

“We've been spending a lot of time right now on portal guys, evaluating portal guys, which opens up Monday, the 9th,” said Cignetti. “Underclassmen can't officially be in the portal until Monday, and then it could take 24 to 48 hours to be processed, so it could be Wednesday, but all you have to do is go on Twitter and see who has announced that they're going to go into the portal, and that doesn't prohibit you from pulling up their PFF tape and evaluating them. So, there's a lot of that going on right now.”

Pull up Twitter I have, and I quickly found a number of quarterbacks currently in the transfer portal that Cignetti himself has begun to follow and, one would imagine, talk to about their future plans. Oklahoma’s Jackson Arnold, USC’s Miller Moss, and Cal’s Fernando Mendoza (brother of Indiana’s Alberto) have all earned recent follows from Indiana’s head ball coach.

Time will only tell on who will ultimately be QB1 for the Hoosiers next Fall, but there is one thing that is certain – Curt Cignetti has a plan. When asked if he has an idea how large he expects his transfer portal class to be, he had a simple response:

“Yeah, I do.”

There were no further questions.