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In the first year of Curt Cignetti’s remarkable transformation of the Indiana football program, he got some excellent quarterback play from Kurtis Rourke, a transfer from Ohio. Rourke would go on to be a seventh-round pick by the 49ers. Cignetti dipped into the transfer portal once again to replace him, bringing in Fernando Mendoza, a productive quarterback from Cal who entered 2025 with some murmuring draft buzz.

The rest is history.

Replacing a quarterback like Mendoza is no easy feat. For Cignetti, it meant going into the portal once again, this time bringing in a college passer who may have even more hype than the eventual Heisman winner and No. 1 pick did a year ago in ex-TCU gunslinger Josh Hoover.…