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The Indiana Hoosiers‘ improbably run to the College Football Playoff became even more remarkable on Friday morning with news that star quarterback Kurtis Rourke played the entire season with a debilitating injury. According to NFL Network’s Tom Pelissero, Rourke tour his ACL in August but played the entire season before scheduling reconstructive surgery.
Not only did Rourke, an Ohio transfer, play the entire season. He played extremely well. The sixth-year senior completed 69.4 percent of his passes for 3,042 yards, 29 touchdowns and just five interceptions to help lead Indiana to its best season in program history.
Indiana star QB Kurtis Rourke, a 2025 NFL Draft prospect, will undergo ACL revision surgery Wednesday, per his agent Casey Muir at @octagonfootball.
Rourke is believed to have re-torn his ACL in August — yet amazingly played and led the Hoosiers to the playoff. One tough dude. pic.twitter.com/0bZze2ZMrC
— Tom Pelissero (@TomPelissero) January 3, 2025
What makes the feat somehow even more remarkable is the fact that Rourke at one point intended not to pursue a sixth year of college football.
“Going back to a year ago and deciding to see what was out there in the transfer portal and then deciding if I wanted to do that or go to the draft and kind of just bet on myself in that way, you know, looking back, I’m glad I made the decision to come here,” Rourke said prior to the Hoosiers’ playoff game against Notre Dame.
Rourke and the Hoosiers struggled against Notre Dame, leading to claims that they didn’t deserve to be in the playoff at all. But subsequent results have shown that notion to be absolutely ridiculous. While the season didn’t end how they’d hoped, Rourke and company more than acquitted themselves over the course of the year.
And while the Canadian QB may not be a future NFL star, his leadership and toughness make him the type of guy that NFL general managers will salivate over.