Indiana football starting quarterback and redshirt freshman Brendan Sorsby has announced that he will enter the transfer portal.
This news follows the season-finale 35-31 loss to Purdue on Saturday and is on the heels of the news that Indiana is firing head coach Tom Allen.
After a long and draw out quarterback battle that went midway into the season, Sorsby won the starting job and helped lead Indiana to a much better second half of the season on the offensive side of the ball.
In 10 games (7 starts), Sorsby threw for 1,587 yards on 57.2 percent passing. He had 15 touchdowns and five interceptions. He threw three of his five interceptions in the loss to Purdue. Sorsby also ran for 286 yards and four touchdowns.
Paired up with new offensive coordinator Rod Carey over the last seven games of the season, Indiana had six of its highest scoring outputs, including its highest of 45 points against Illinois. Indiana went on to average 25.8 points per game over the final six games — all starts for Sorsby. That was up from 16.8 points in the five previous games against FBS opponents.
“He’s made improvements in command, understanding and just playing the position,” Carey said of Sorsby earlier this season. “He’s getting the rep base and some things slow down. So, some things are definitely starting to slow down for him.
“He understood what type of game he was in. Understanding the difference in the two types of games and his ability to do that has been good … there has been a lot of improvement in that. Sometimes that can happen quick for young guys — that incline goes up because those game reps. I always say, a game rep is like two or three practice reps. So he’s doing more of those things.”
Following Indiana’s loss on Sunday, it was evident that Sorsby was going to be the guy long term in Bloomington.
Indiana has three additional quarterbacks on the roster with Tayven Jackson, Dexter Williams and Broc Lowry. Jackson won the starting job early this season after transferring in from Tennessee but ultimately lost the job to Sorsby midway through the year.
Make sure to follow Hoosier Illustrated, part of the Full Ride Network, on Twitter @Indiana_FRN, Facebook and YouTube to stay up to date on all of the news, updates and coverage of Indiana University athletics. You can also listen to the Talking’ Bout the Hoosiers podcast on Spotify.