Indiana Kurtis Rourke named finalist for NCAA's top QB award

Indiana Hoosiers quarterback was named one of ten finalists for the Manning Award on Thursday evening.

Other finalist include Miami's Cam Ward, Jaxson Dart of Ole Miss, Shedeur Sanders of Colorado and Oregon's Dillon Gabriel, Georgia's Carson Beck, Washington State's John Mateer, Syracuse's Kyle McCord, LSU's Garrett Nussmeier and Texas' Quinn Ewers for the award.

The Manning Award was created by the Allstate Sugar Bowl in honor of the college football accomplishments of Archie, Peyton and Eli Manning. It is the only quarterback award that takes the candidates' bowl performances into consideration in its balloting.

"It's been another fun year of college football," said Archie Manning. "We've seen some great quarterback performances at all levels, and the fact we had 36 different players get votes to be Manning Award finalists shows the depth at the position around the country. This year, we get to follow many of them through the newly expanded College Football Playoff, so there's a lot of football yet to be played. No matter what happens, I'm sure we'll again have an outstanding winner of the Manning Award following all of the postseason games."

Rourke completed 70.4 percent of his passes for 2,827 yards, 27 touchdowns, and four interceptions over 11 starts this season, going 10-1. He is coming off his best performance of his career as he threw a record six touchdown passes in a 66-0 win over the Purdue Boilermakers to cap off an 11-1 season.

The winner of the Manning Award will be named after the entirety of the 2024-25 bowl season is over.

Ninth ranked IU will wait to see where they rank in the next CFP rankings on Sunday, Dec. 8th at noon - 4 p.m.