Kurtis Rourke continues to put his stamp on the Indiana football quarterback room in spring practice as he takes ‘pretty significant step’ forward

A week after Indiana football head coach Curt Cignetti said he didn’t want to talk much about the quarterback position publicly moving forward, he had another nice public endorsement for one of his signal-callers. 

Kurtis Rourke transferred from Ohio this offseason with the expectation that he would be the starter week one for Indiana. As expected up to this point, Cignetti has not named an official starter — but through practice nine of spring camp, things are lining up to see Rourke under center come week one this fall.

“I think Kurtis Rourke has definitely taken a pretty significant step,” Cignetti said this week.

Rourke has seen most of his snaps throughout spring practice come with the ones while second-year Hoosier Tayven Jackson has spent the majority of his snaps with the twos.

The Ohio transfer has 33 starts under his belt in his collegiate career. He has thrown for 7,651 yards and 50 touchdowns in his career.

Despite the experience and production coming to Indiana, it’s an entirely different staff and conference. That means a new playbook and starting fresh. With that in mind, his progress in spring practice is even more impressive in the eyes of the coaching staff.

But at the end of the day, both Rourke and Curt Cignetti know there’s more to improve on.

“He’s learning a lot of new plays, a lot of new terminology,” Cignetti said. “He’s finding the open guy, getting them involved. But there’s still improvement that could be made there.”

Indiana fans will get their first look at Rourke this upcoming week during the spring game.

While in a limited setting, it’ll give fans a look at what Rourke has shown throughout spring practice up to this point — ‘looking like a high-level quarterback’.

“He just looks like [he is more comfortable],” Cignetti said about Rourke earlier in spring. “The last two practices he’s been functioning, looking like a high-level quarterback.”