Kurtis Rourke threw for 349 yards and six touchdowns Saturday night as No. 10 Indiana appears headed for an unlikely spot in the College Football Playoff with a 66-0 Big Ten Conference rout of Purdue in Bloomington, Ind.
Picked 17th among 18 teams in the conference’s preseason poll, the Hoosiers improved to 11-1 overall and 8-1 in the conference. Though they lost the tiebreaker to No. 4 Penn State to meet No. 1 Oregon in the conference title game on Dec. 7, they should be among the 12-team CFP field when it’s announced on Dec. 8.
Rourke completed 23 of 31 passes, and Elijah Sarratt finished with eight catches for 165 yards and two touchdowns as Indiana found the offensive form that was missing in a 20-15 win over Michigan on Nov. 9 and a 38-15 loss last week at No. 2 Ohio State. The Hoosiers rolled up 582 total yards Saturday.
Their defense stifled the hapless Boilermakers (1-11, 0-9), which managed just 67 yards and five first downs in absorbing their 11th straight loss.
Hudson Card hit 6 of 13 passes for 35 yards with an interception for the Boilermakers before leaving the game in the third quarter. They failed to win a conference game for the first time since 2013.
Indiana took the lead on its second possession, driving 86 yards and scoring on Justice Ellison’s 2-yard run. After a missed field-goal attempt, the Hoosiers scored touchdowns on three straight possessions and led 28-0 at halftime.
For the first of those, Rourke connected with Ke’Shawn Williams for a 14-yard touchdown at the 11:31 mark, followed by an 84-yard strike to Sarratt just over four minutes later. Ty Son Lawton added a 4-yard touchdown run with 2:52 remaining in the half.
The game became a laugher in the third quarter as Indiana scored 17 more points. Nicolas Radicic hit a 26-yard field goal, followed by Rourke’s 24-yard scoring strike to Sarratt and a 5-yard touchdown pass to Zach Horton with 1:31 remaining.
Rourke added 34- and 17-yard scoring connections to Miles Cross and Omar Cooper, respectively, in the first three minutes of the fourth quarter.
–Field Level Media
