Two years ago, redshirt freshman Tyler Cherry was the talk of Indiana football. He was the headliner on Curt Cignetti’s first signing class after flipping from Duke. While he was not expected to start as a freshman, the Greenwood, Indiana native was to be the future of the position. That held until a devastating knee injury knocked Cherry off that path.
Cherry injured his knee preparing for Indiana’s College Football Playoff game against Notre Dame in December of 2024. It came as a shock when his name popped up on the injury report before the game, and even more shocking when the severity of that injury came out.
It was an injury that Cignetti said, “there were some people that didn’t think he’d come back from that knee and he did.”
Cherry was removed from the roster ahead of 2025 and stayed with the program as a student assistant while preserving a year of eligibility. Despite being around the program for two-plus years, he is still a redshirt freshman.
Cherry’s time on the other side of the white lines seems to have paid off.
“He wasn’t available last season, so we tried to keep him involved as much as we could. He’s taken a big step since he was here before.” Cignetti said.
While being limited in some things, Cherry has grown in the offseason, adding over 20 pounds to his 6’5″ frame.
Cherry has been back practicing this spring and looks impressive. While he has not shown how he is running on the surgically repaired knee, he has displayed the strongest arm in the quarterback room and the size of a future Big Ten quarterback.
Cignetti gave him a glowing review, but added that there are still things Cherry needs to work on.
“He’s done some good things. He’s only going to get better.” Cignetti said before adding that “he’s got to tighten his footwork up a little bit, tighten up his release. He missed a couple throws out there today, but I really like uh the way he’s improving.”
On Thursday, the Hoosiers did something different with their quarterbacks. Cignetti and the offensive staff sat Josh Hoover. While that may grab attention for the wrong reasons, it had nothing to do with Hoover and everything to do with Cignetti and his staff looking at what they have behind Hoover.
“We sat Josh today,” Cignetti said. “That’s the first time I’ve done that, but we needed to do it to kind of find out more about these guys. I needed to see (Cherry) against better competition. I mean, I needed to see Tyler Cherry with the ones. I needed to Maverick Geskie with the twos. And I needed to get Jacob Bell more work because he’s got a live arm.”
It has been a long road back for Cherry, who could be the future quarterback that everyone envisioned a few years ago when he committed and signed with IU.