Michigan
Indiana football quarterback Kurtis Rourke on thumb injury: ‘I feel back to 100%’
BLOOMINGTON — The only evidence of Indiana football quarterback Kurtis Rourke’s thumb injury was a bit of tape.
He ditched the splint and glove he wore against Michigan State in IU’s 20-15 win over Michigan on Saturday at Memorial Stadium.
Rourke underwent surgery on his throwing hand two weeks ago after breaking a bone in his right thumb. He made a quick recovery for the No. 8 Hoosiers (10-0; 7-0 Big Ten), but protected the thumb in his return to the lineup against MSU.
He didn’t wear anything on his throwing hand while preparing for the Wolverines. He felt some mild discomfort at the end of a full week of practice, but the rest he got during an off day on Friday had him feeling “100 percent.”
“I had no issues going into today,” Rourke said, after the game.
Indiana QB Kurtis Rourke and offense ‘near perfect’ in first half
Indiana looked like it was going to cruise to another double-digit victory on Saturday when it jumped out to a 17-3 lead with Rourke going 14 of 18 for 190 yards with two touchdowns.
“We were going against a really good defense, that first half we had to be near perfect,” Rourke said. “Made some good reads, big catches and big runs.”
With Michigan starter corner Will Johnson sidelined with an injury, Indiana leaned on the deep ball starting with Rourke’s 26-yard gain in the first quarter to Ke’Shawn Williams along the sideline to get into the red zone.
The Ohio transfer had the tiniest of windows to deliver the ball and Williams made a great individual effort by getting his feet down inbounds after making the leaping two-handed grab.
Rourke throwing a back-shoulder throw to Omar Cooper Jr. for a touchdown two plays later to give Indiana a 7-3 lead.
He extended that advantage with a 36-yard touchdown pass to Elijah Sarratt with 12:10 to go in the second quarter. Rourke didn’t flinch with Michigan’s All-American defensive tackle Mason Graham bearing down on him in the pocket and delivered one of his prettiest throws of the season to Sarratt on a pass that traveled more than 45 yards in the air.
Rourke closed out the half 3 of 4 on passes of 20-yards or more.
Indiana’s offense shows ‘good resolve’ despite struggles
The consensus after the game was that IU’s offense was just out of sync in the second half.
Michigan didn’t make any wholesale changes at halftime and didn’t do anything the Hoosiers hadn’t seen on film, but nothing seemed to work.
“For a while there, we had a hard time gaining three yards on offense.” Cignetti said.
On IU’s first offensive snap of the second half, Rourke threw the ball right into the hands of Michigan defensive back Zeke Berry at his own 7-yard line. It was only his fourth interception of the season, but the turnover acted as a wake up call for the Wolverines.
They forced three straight punts after that.
“The interception was a bad way to start, and then we had some protection issues, and then we had some opportunities, plays that we normally make, maybe a one-on-one go ball or back-shoulder throw, we fake the bubble and Sarratt down the sideline just can’t quite connect,” Cignetti said. “We had a number of those. And then the sacks. We couldn’t get anything going in the run game. It just wasn’t happening.”
Indiana finished with 10 total yards of offense in the second half and were held to less than 250 yards for the first time since visiting Ann Arbor last year, but no one panicked.
“I thought we did a really good job,” Cignetti said. “The offense is used to clicking and scoring a lot of points. I thought everybody had good resolve. We stepped up as a team and found a different way to win.”
The offense managed some critical first downs with the game on the line.
Rourke connected with Williams again late in the second half to put IU in field goal range — Nicolas Radicic hit a 41-yarder with 2:34 to go — and he ran the ball for a first down in the final minutes to prevent Michigan from getting the ball back.
“These are games that really test you as a team,” Rourke said. “We knew eventually we’d come to a game that it would be close and we’d have to see what we are made of. Really proud of how we handled it.”
Michael Niziolek is the Indiana beat reporter for The Bloomington Herald-Times. You can follow him on X @michaelniziolek and read all his coverage by clicking here.
Kyle Whittingham’s staff at Michigan is nearly complete. Position coaches have been hired and now the Wolverines are working on their analysts and assistants to help the position coaches. And Michigan fans heard some positive news on Sunday.
Not only did the Wolverines hire a new safeties coach, with a ton of history as a defensive coordinator, but Michigan will retain long-time coach Fred Jackson, according to MGoBlue where he is listed as an analyst.
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Jackson was Michigan’s running backs coach from 1992-2014 before he left to coach high school football. But in 2022, he was welcomed back to Ann Arbor under Jim Harbaugh and helped coach the position. He assisted Tony Alford, who was also retained to coach running backs, for the past two seasons at Michigan.
With the tutelage from both Jackson and Alford, Michigan’s run game was fantastic this season. Despite injuries to both Justice Haynes and Jordan Marshall, Michigan had one of the top rushing attacks in the Big Ten.
The Wolverines averaged over 210 yards per game on the ground. Haynes had six games of over 100 yards on the ground, Marshall had four, and former walk-on Bryson Kuzdzal rushed for 100 yards once this season when both Haynes and Marshall missed.
More on Jackson and his history in Ann Arbor
He has coached five All-Big Ten running backs at Michigan, led by three-time all-conference first team honoree Tyrone Wheatley (1992-94) and two-time performer Mike Hart (2004, 2006). Anthony Thomas (2000) and Chris Perry (2003) were All-Big Ten first team selections and Tshimanga Biakabutuka earned second-team honors in 1995. Thomas and Hart received distinction as Big Ten Freshman of the Year award winners.
Jackson’s running backs have led the league in rushing four times during his tenure and surpassed the 1,000-yard barrier 12 times, including Fitzgerald Toussaint in 2011. Perry (2003) and Hart (2004) became the first teammates to lead the league in rushing in back-to-back seasons since 1982-83, pacing the Big Ten in both overall and conference play.
He also coached two seasons in Ann Arbor as the Wolverines’ offensive coordinator.
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Michigan State football is identifying targets across the board to being in for visits as the transfer portal window moves along. The latest visit to go public comes from a wide receiver at the FCS level.
Evan James, a Furman transfer, will be taking a visit to East Lansing starting on Jan. 5. A 5-foot-11, 170 pound receiver from Apopka, Florida, James had a breakout season for the Paladins. In 2025 he caught 65 passes for 796 yards and seven touchdowns. He also had seven carries for 72 yards and a touchdown, doing all of this as a true freshman, earning FCS Freshman All-American honors.
After doing this all as a freshman, he will bring three years of eligibility with him to the next school of his choosing. Aside from Michigan State, it is rumored that Boston College and Cincinnati will also be in contention.
Contact/Follow us @The SpartansWire on X (formerly Twitter) and like our page on Facebook to follow ongoing coverage of Michigan State news, notes and opinion. You can also follow Cory Linsner on X @Rex_Linzy
Even before high winds have kicked in from a strong incoming storm system, more than 50,000 homes and businesses were without power across Michigan.
The bulk of these outages are in Mid-Michigan. Clare County had the largest outage tally, with more than 16,000. Mecosta County had more than 7, 500 without power, and Isabella County had more than 6,000 out.
A couple counties in the very western Upper Peninsula were also reporting outages.
These outage numbers are expected to increase by early Monday, as high winds come in as part of this storm system. Sustained winds of 25 to 35 mph are expected, but wind gusts could top 60 mph in some areas.
The issue with the Mid-Michigan outages is rooted in Friday’s ice accumulation. Utility officials said there has been about a half-inch of ice accumulation on trees and power lines in that area through the weekend. Temperatures this weekend did not get warm enough to melt the ice, as they did in other areas. Heavy rain on Sunday froze again quickly, causing a heavier ice load and more outages.
Consumers Energy has said they have crews mobilized to work on outages as they arise with this storm.
To see the latest update on this storm coverage, follow our headlines on the MLive Weather page.
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