Curt Cignetti has settled on a QB. But that’s not most important news of IU football camp.

BLOOMINGTON – Indiana apparently emerged from its first preseason scrimmage with greater clarity at quarterback.

Whether it was needed is debatable, but Curt Cignetti’s pronouncement that Ohio transfer Kurtis Rourke “separated himself pretty significantly” over the weekend provided on Monday the kind of water-cooler fodder that trades as good as gold this time of year.

It was not the most important thing Cignetti said. Perhaps not even close.

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Firstly, quarterback has never really been a position in doubt for Indiana this offseason. Cignetti clearly seems pleased with redshirt sophomore Tayven Jackson’s progress, and he’s got two freshmen who look intriguing each in his own way. But you don’t land a player like Rourke in the modern-day NIL/portal landscape — an accomplished MAC quarterback with nothing left to prove anywhere except here — to sit him.

Rourke took every first-team snap during the spring game in April. Nothing since suggests he’d regressed in his coach’s eyes, Cignetti’s confirmation Monday only the latest evidence of what’s been clear for some time now: Rourke, when healthy, will start at quarterback for IU this fall.

No, the most important bit of Cignetti’s news conference came elsewhere in his recap. Specifically, on the other side of the line of scrimmage.

“Our defense,” he said, “is a handful when it comes to protecting the passer.”

That should be nothing new for Cignetti, thanks to his current staff.

While four of the six assistants Cignetti brought with him from James Madison to Bloomington work on the offensive side of the ball, the pair accompanying him on defense are arguably more intriguing.

Bryant Haines, the highest-paid coordinator in program history and the first million-dollar DC…

Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/curt-cignetti-settled-qb-thats-084030640.html

Author : IndyStar | The Indianapolis Star

Publish date : 2024-08-13 08:40:30

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