A drive-by-drive look at Indiana football's spring game
BLOOMINGTON, Ind. - Indiana held its first spring football game in the Curt Cignetti era on Thursday night at Memorial Stadium. The "glorified practice" as Cignetti put it was the first of its kind in Bloomington, dating back to 2019.
Thursday night's festivities also represented the first time this spring that the Hoosiers tackled at a full 100%. Prior to Thursday night, all of Indiana's spring practices had been contact-and-release.
The spring game pitted the offense -- team crimson, wearing crimson colored jerseys -- against the defense -- team cream, wearing cream/white colored jerseys.
The contest featured two 15 minute quarters, with the scoring as follows: touchdown - six points, extra point - one point, field goal - three points, turnover forced - four points, defensive stop - three points, safety - two points.
Let's go drive-by-drive to recap Thursday's spring game.
Drive 1
Quarterback Kurtis Rourke led the first-team offense out onto the field to start the game. Firing incompletions on his first two drop backs, the Ohio transfer went 2-5 on the opening drive with completions to wide receiver Myles Price and running back Ty Son Lawton.
Running back Justice Ellison got the first-team snaps in the backfield. Ellison had a handful of solid runs up the middle on the first drive, and was spelled by Lawton on a couple of third downs.
The offense was forced to punt to open up the game -- there were not actually any punts in the game, both sides simply flipped sides -- as the first-team defense demonstrated a wealth of athleticism all over the field.
Drive 2
Taking the reps with the second-team offense, quarterback Tayven Jackson came out firing on the second drive of the game as him and Rourke alternated possessions.
Starting the drive on his own 10-yard line, Jackson went 7-7 for 89 yards on the second drive of the game.
He led the second-team offense on a 90-yard touchdown drive to put the crimson team -- the offense -- on the board. The drive was highlighted by a 39-yard pass and catch from Jackson to wide receiver Andison Coby.
The touchdown drive culminated in Jackson finding a familiar target in wideout Donaven McCulley for an 11-yard connection in the back of the end zone.
Drive 3
Rourke took the field once again for the third drive of the game. Once again, the Hoosiers' QB1 struggled to move the offense down the field.
The lone completion Rourke had on the drive came in an empty set to Price for six yards.
Running back Kaelon Black was on the receiving end of a couple of handoffs on drive three. The James Madison transfer had an explosive 24-yard run to open the drive, but for a second consecutive drive to open the game, the first-team offense had a drive stall out around midfield.
Drive 4
Drive four was yet another encouraging drive for Jackson.
The Center Grove product went 3-4 on the drive, completing a pass to Coby down the left sideline for a gain of 64 yards. Freshman defensive back Dontrae Henderson appeared to slip on the play, leaving Coby with ample space to run free.
After Coby took the ball down to the 3-yard line, it took Ellison a couple rushing attempts before he finally was able to pound the ball into the end zone on the ground.
Redshirt freshman defensive back Lincoln Murff made a nice, open-field tackle on Ellison to keep the tailback out of the end zone on second and goal from inside the five.
Drive 5
Finally, on Rourke's third drive of the game, the first-team found the end zone.
Rourke completed a handful of passes to Price and found tight end Trey Walker and wide receiver Elijah Sarratt for a couple of underneath completions.
While Rourke looked much more comfortable and in control on his third drive of the game, the sixth-year senior narrowly escaped throwing an interception. Defensive back Kobee Minor was a couple of inches away from picking off Rourke about halfway through the drive.
Black and Lawton handled a majority of the work in the ground game, with Lawton eventually finding the end zone from 13 yards out for a score. Lawton got around the edge on the right side of the line, crossing the goal line with a defender draped all over him.
Drive 6
Drive six saw both the third-team offense and third-team defense briefly take the field. Greenwood, Indiana native and four-star recruit Tyler Cherry quarterbacked team crimson on drive six.
An incompletion, a 4-yard gain on the ground and a sack resulted in a quick three and out in the battle of the third-team offense and defense.
Drive 7
The third-teamers stayed out on the field for the seventh drive of the game, but were met with a similar fate as to the drive prior.
Cherry tossed an incompletion to open the drive before handing it off to fellow Center Grove High School alum Daniel Weems for a 1-yard gain.
On third and nine, Cherry connected with Weems out of the backfield for an 8-yard gain. A yard short of the line to gain on fourth down, team crimson punted the ball away.
Drive 8
After back-to-back drives of watching the third-team offense and defense battle it out, the first-teamers came back out for another possession on drive eight.
Ellison and North Carolina transfer Elijah Green both had nice six and seven yard gains respectively, but most of the work was done through the air on the first-team's fourth drive of the spring game.
Rourke had a couple of short completions early in the drive before a pass interference called against linebacker Isaiah Jones gave the drive new life. Rourke threw a beautiful back shoulder ball down the left sideline looking for Sarratt the play after the pass interference, but corner Jamier Johnson made an excellent play to bat the ball down.
Jones made up for his earlier mistake by getting to Rourke for a sack to bring the drive to a close.
Drive 9
Another short possession, Weems began the drive with a short 1-yard run.
Jackson followed it up by throwing an interception looking for wide receiver Myles Cross down the right seam. Old Dominion transfer Terry Jones Jr. came up with the interception coming down from the safety spot.
Drive 10
To kickoff the 10th drive of the game, Rourke fired a lazar to receiver Omar Cooper Jr. for a gain of 16 yards. Rourke fired two more incompletions, one to Cooper and one to Cross, before a fourth and 11 false start set up a 51-yard field goal attempt for ULM transfer Derek McCormick.
McCormick was unable to connect from 51 yards out, putting points on the board for the defense.
Drive 11
The last drive of the game for the second-team offense and second-team defense was a quick one.
After completing his first pass of the drive to tight end Sam West, Jackson threw two straight incompletions to bring drive 11 to a close.
Drive 12
Trailing the defense, Rourke led the offense back onto the field for what ended up being a game-winning drive in the final minutes of play.
Rourke went 11/13 for 65 yards and a touchdown pass to Coby from three yards out. The touchdown pass to Coby was another nice throw to his wideout's outside shoulder, a spot only Coby could come up with the catch.
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