Newly hired Indiana coach Curt Cignetti pored through the transfer portal last December, looking for a proven quarterback with a winning resumé who could quickly become the cornerstone in another rebuilding project.
He landed on 23-year-old Kurtis Rourke, the 2022 Mid-American Conference MVP.
Notre Dame coach Marcus Freeman had a far simpler pitch to former Duke quarterback Riley Leonard: win a national championship and go down in Fighting Irish lore.
Both coaches took big swings on their respective one-year hired guns, and on Friday night, they’ll reap the reward when Rourke leads the 10th-seeded Hoosiers (10-2) against the seventh-seeded Fighting Irish (10-2) in what looked like an impossible first-round College Football Playoff matchup all those months ago.
“A lot of us have had to prove we belong wherever we are,” Rourke said. “It just fuels us, knowing that we’re counted out and we’re the underdog and we always will be — at least for this year — so we can go in and play freely and that we’re capable of competing with anybody.”
For Rourke, Leonard, Oregon quarterback Dillon Gabriel and Ohio State quarterback Will Howard, there won’t be a next year. Each transferred to his playoff-bound schools with one college season left, so whatever happens over the next month must suffice.
If any of the four bring home a national championship, they could cement this model for years or decades given what all four have achieved.
AP file photo by Adam Hunger / Notre Dame quarterback Riley Leonard is in his first year with the Fighting Irish after transferring from ACC program Duke.Rourke’s Hoosiers already have created quite a legacy.
This year’s Indiana team broke the program records for single-season wins, scuttled preseason projections of a 17th-place finish in the 18-team Big Ten by tying for second — ahead of perennial powers Michigan and Ohio State — came within a tiebreaker of playing for their first conference crown since 1967 and earned one of the precious bids for the first 12-team CFP.
Cignetti left nothing to chance. He brought most of his staff and 13 players from James Madison University to Indiana, and the continuity helped speed up the transition.
He also brought more than a dozen transfer players, including Rourke, who looked like a perfect fit: mature, 33 starts and 21 wins in his collegiate career, a high completion percentage and low interception rate and a brother, Nathan, who played at Ohio before going pro.
“He’s played a lot of football, and you learn by doing,” said Cignetti, who on Tuesday was named AP college football coach of the year. “He’s gotten a lot of reps playing quarterback, a lot of successful reps. He’s a quick thinker, and he processes quickly. He’s extremely accurate, and he’s good in the pocket. He doesn’t panic. He has certainly taken his game to another level.”
Rourke, who got married in February, wanted to play another year in college and was intrigued by Cignetti’s confidence, system and history of cultivating conference player of the year quarterbacks at previous schools.
The results were impeccable despite Rourke’s late-season thumb injury on his throwing hand, which required surgery. Despite missing one game, Rourke heads into the final month of this season as the most efficient passer in the Football Bowl Subdivision with a 181.38 rating, and he’s ranked near the top nationally in completion percentage (70.4%) and touchdown passes (27) on the highest scoring team (43.3 points) in the CFP field.
He was an All-Big Ten second-team selection, behind Gabriel and ahead of Howard. Freeman has already seen enough video footage to know what Notre Dame’s stout defense is up against.
“Every great offense is led by a great quarterback, and this is no different,” Freeman said. “He’s been in big games, he’s played a lot of football games, and he makes really good decisions. He knows where he’s going with his throws, he knows what he’s looking for, and he executes at a high level.”
Leonard poses different problems for the Hoosiers.
One of the nation’s top rushing quarterbacks chose Notre Dame because of its tradition and the lure of leading one of college football’s blue-blood programs to end a 36-year title drought, the longest since Notre Dame won its first national championship in 1924.
Freeman took this journey last year when Sam Hartman left Wake Forest and spent his final college season with the Irish in South Bend, Indiana. But the Notre Dame coach isn’t necessarily married to the concept of recruiting a new starting quarterback every year.
“There’s a process it takes to make sure your quarterback and your offense are performing at the highest levels they can,” Freeman said. “But there are also ways to expedite the process as I think Riley and coach (Mike) Denbrock and coach (Gino) Guidugli have been doing. As far as moving forward, it’s not something on worrying about in the future.”
That’s why the Irish have made it to the playoff for the first time since 2021, and for the first time with Freeman running the show.
A year ago, with Hartman, Notre Dame’s title hopes were derailed by two losses early in the schedule. This year, Leonard helped the Irish rebound from their stunning September loss to MAC member Northern Illinois by leading them to 10 straight wins while joining five power conference quarterbacks to top 1,900 yards passing and 650 rushing.
And with the Irish just four wins away from their ultimate goal, Leonard is ready for one last ride.
“I’ve been in every situation, played in a lot of big-time games, too. So I’ve been in this situation, I know what it’s like,” said Leonard, who has rushed for 33 career touchdowns. “To make it where we are now is kind of why I came to Notre Dame. I came here to compete, to make the playoff and to compete for a national championship.”