While college football fans are away in the final games of the College Football Playoff, teams who are not playing still have something to look forward to. For seniors heading to the NFL, they are awaiting invites from different senior bowl games to have a chance to showcase their talents to NFL scouts one last time before the NFL Combine.
The Indiana Hoosiers will have three players showcased in one of those bowl games. CJ West, Trey Wedig, and Kurtis Rourke all accepted invites to the East-West Shrine Bowl.
Even though he accepted his invites, it is unlikely that Rourke will get to play in the game since the news of his ACL surgery broke last week. It was reported that Rourke played the entire 2024 season with a re-torn ACL, the same ACL he tore back in 2022 when he was with the Ohio Bobcats. This surgery will most likely keep Rourke sidelined for a while, but he still has a solid draft grade heading into the 2025 NFL Draft.
West and Wedig should both still be set to play in the game. Wedig accepted his invite shortly after the Hoosiers fell to Notre Dame in the College Football Playoff, and West just recently accepted his invite.
What is the East-West Shrine Bowl?
The East-West Shrine Bowl is one of the bowl games apart of the Shrine Bowl, which is a college football all-star game that showcases senior college football players to NFL scouts and executives. There are a total of four bowl games, the East-West Shrine Bowl, the Shrine Bowl of Kansas, the Iowa Shrine Bowl, and the Shrine Bowl of the Carolinas.
The East-West Shrine Bowl is the most known of the four games and is the oldest college football all-star game in the country. This year marks the 100th year of the game that started back in 1925. This is the best chance these players will have to showcase their talents to all 32 NFL scouts and executives.