A Month After His First Start IU QB Jack Tuttle Has Had Plenty of Time to Prep for the Outback Bowl

 Written by Sammy Jacobs (@Hoosier_Huddle)

Indiana redshirt sophomore quarterback Jack Tuttle had been waiting his turn behind Michael Penix and Peyton Ramsey to get his shot at being the man leading the IU offense. His number was called on November 28th after Michael Penix tore his ACL in the second half against Maryland. Tuttle’s only start came the next week at Wisconsin as he helped lead Indiana to a 14-6 win.

Then COVID hit IU and shut things down, cancelling the Hoosiers’ final two games and giving the young signal caller plenty of time to get ready for a bowl game.

“I think these past couple weeks have been great for us to get back on the field, get all of the guys reps, you know, just play football and have fun with the boys and get back into it.” Tuttle said on Wednesday. “I can say we're itching to play. We've been prepping for a while so I feel like we're just ready to play this point, and guys are ready to go.”

With seven games under his belt and on tape how much can Tuttle do to improve his play and get ready for an Ole Miss defense allowing over 40 points per game?

“I kind of try and prep for prepping.” Tuttle explained. “I do watch a ton of film for the opponent, but after the game I watch Game with Coach Sheridan and the quarterbacks by myself, maybe one time. I take all the improvements from my notebook, go over them every single morning before practice, and then it kind of come in just move on to the next opponent right it's just kind of 1-0, for this whole team myself. But for preparation it's just non-stop for all the guys. I know we're watching like I said we don't really have any school so it's just hours and hours of field prep just applying that into practice and just going to have fun.”

With any kind of preparation this is a danger of over preparing and causing paralysis by analysis. Tuttle addressed those concerns and says he leans on muscle memory to help prevent that.

“People get overwhelmed and start overthinking things that's so I think that's a great question for me.” Tuttle explained. “I've gone right to the point. So, where I kind of have muscle memory but mentally, right. So, if I see it in practice and it's just like, okay, you have perfect muscle memory. Mentally in my head that I'm good on it. And I'll just rip it going over like in the walkthroughs and stuff. But if there's a little mistake here and there and practice with the rep I'll go back to the film I'll go over it go over it until it becomes, as I said, muscle memory.”

Tuttle has played in two games this season and has completed 18-of-27 passes for 161 yards and two touchdowns. He will be making his second career start when the Hoosiers take on Ole Miss in the Outback Bowl on Saturday at 12:30.