Indiana football starts Brendan Sorsby at quarterback against Ohio State
BLOOMINGTON — Indiana football started Brendan Sorsby at quarterback against Ohio State in the season-opener.
Sorsby took the opening snap on offense after competing for the starting job with fellow redshirt freshman Tayven Jackson throughout the offseason, but both quarterbacks worked with the first-team offense during pre-game warmups and IndyStar's Zach Osterman reported both were expected to play.
There was little separation between them coming out of spring practice and they rotated snaps evenly through the first two scrimmages in fall camp.
Allen told reporters on August 23 the coaching staff made a decision on the starting quarterback, but declined to publicly reveal who won the job.
“I would say that the process that you go through, especially with two guys who are the same age and both young, both talented, both bring different skill sets to the team,” Allen said, at the time. “Very pleased with those guys. I think they’ve just both really improved a lot since they’ve been there.”
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Sorsby was a three-star quarterback prospect out of Lake Dallas High School in Texas. He was ranked 1,013 nationally and No. 66 at this position in the 2022 signing class, according to 247 Sports composite rankings.
Indiana was his only offer from a Power Five team.
Sorsby redshirted last year, but did play 12 snaps in a blowout loss to Penn State last season. He threw for eight yards and an interception on 3 of 6 passing.
Allen praised Sorsby’s “arm talent” during his weekly radio show on Wednesday and he was the more consistent in the pocket of Indiana’s two quarterbacks during portions of fall camp open to the media.
Jackson only spent two days in the transfer portal before verbally committing to Indiana. He had plenty of familiarity with the school after Allen and company heavily recruited him out of high school and his older brother Trayce Jackson-Davis was a standout for IU’s basketball team.
He was a four-star prospect coming out of Center Grove High School where he won a state title and set a new career passing record. He was the state’s No. 6 ranked prospects in the 2022 signing class and No. 237 overall (No. 12 at quarterback), according to 247 Sports composite rankings.
Jackson landed at Tennessee after receiving more than 30 scholarship offers including ones from Auburn, Florida, Michigan, Oregon, Ole Miss and Texas A&M.
He appeared in three games — he completed 3 of 4 pass attempts for 37 yards — while redshirting during his lone season with the Volunteers.
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Indiana rebuilt its quarterback room in the offseason after losing multiple quarterbacks to the transfer portal — Connor Bazelak (Bowling Green) and Jack Tuttle (Michigan) — and returning quarterback Dexter Williams rehabbing a torn ACL he suffered late in the season.
All three of them started at least one game last season.
Bazelak played the most snaps with nine starts (10 appearances) and threw for 2,312 yards (55.2%) with 13 touchdowns and 10 interceptions.
Michael Niziolek is the Indiana beat reporter for The Bloomington Herald-Times. You can follow him on Twitter @michaelniziolek and read all his coverage by clicking here.
This article originally appeared on The Herald-Times: Indiana starts Brendan Sorsby at quarterback against Ohio State
