IU football QB commit Tim Carpenter could be centerpiece of 2024 recruiting class

BLOOMINGTON — Indiana football quarterback commit Tim Carpenter III wasn’t sure what sport he wanted to dedicate his time to going into high school at Trotwood-Madison in suburban Dayton.

That all changed while watching Archbishop Alter blow out the Rams 42-0 in the regional quarterfinals during his freshman year.

While Carpenter split time at quarterback during the regular season, the coaches played the senior he was rotating with during the playoffs.

“The way we lost motivated me,” Carpenter said. “I never wanted to feel that way again, That feeling right there was what did it.”

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He continued to play basketball and football, but dedicated what time he had in the offseason to football and the improvements he’s made over the past two years put him on Indiana’s radar.

Carpenter, who verbally committed to the Hoosiers on May 21, could end up one of the centerpieces of a 2024 signing class that’s taken shape over the summer. The Dayton native is one of three Indiana verbal commits (Keion Dunlap and Adedamola Ajani) ranked among the top 1,000 national recruits, according to 247Sports composite rankings.

Ringing the Bell

The first play on Carpenter’s junior year highlight film is of him throwing a 60-yard go-ahead touchdown to freshman Armani Rogers in a 26-24 win over Alter.

It didn’t balance the scales from that postseason loss, but the throw did save the season for a Trotwood-Madison team that opened the year 0-3.

Carpenter smiled when asked about the arm strength — the ball traveled 40-plus yards in the air — he showed off on the play.

“You love it when you get a chance to take a shot like that,” Carpenter said.

It’s one of the many boxes Carpenter ticks off for collegiate coaches. The 6-3, 215 pounder has the combination of speed and size that’s a perfect fit for Indiana offensive coordinator Walt Bell’s spread offense that relies on RPOs, zone reads and read-option plays.

Whether Carpenter is carrying the ball off a designed run or trying to make something happen when the pocket breaks down, his coaches know he can make a play.

One of Carpenter’s most memorable moments last season was one of the former.

Carpenter kept the ball on a designed counter where the defensive end went unblocked. He juked one defender, hit a spin move to break free from another would-be tackler and ran 62-yards for the score to help lock up a 40-33 victory.

“I was scared to look back, I thought someone would be breathing down my neck,” Carpenter said.  "That was basically the dagger of the game. The best feeling was that I was running down their sideline and I could see all the cheerleaders and fans just get deflated.”

Those are the kind of plays he hopes he can make once he gets to Bloomington.

Tale of two visits

Indiana’s recruitment of Carpenter revolved around a pair of visits Bell made to Trotwood-Madison to bookend the spring contact period.

Bell, who actually started recruiting Carpenter when he was the head coach at UMass, visited the school to watch the quarterback throw in early May. He was mostly a spectator as the quarterback worked through his normal route tree with a group of Trotwood-Madison receivers.

“He told me everything looked a million times better than what I put on tape as a sophomore,” Carpenter said.

For good reason.

Carpenter spent the previous offseason working with a private quarterback coach — Brad Maendler out of Hudson, Ohio — for the first time and those biweekly sessions combined with the work he did on his own helped him completely overhaul his throwing mechanics.

“There were a lot of questions about my arm motion, my mechanics were very raw and that was on my sophomore tape,” Carpenter said. “My arm kind of came down in a circular motion instead of driving all the way back then throwing. That's not going to be able to translate at the next level.”

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Carpenter would have to wait another three weeks to receive his first Power Five offer despite Bell giving him rave reviews.

What Carpenter didn’t know at the time is that Bell told his Trotwood-Madison coach Jeff Graham he would be back at the end of the month to officially offer him after a second workout the offensive coordinator himself helped script.

"He had me throw 20-yard comebacks to the field, 20-yard seams, and a lot of movement,” Carpenter said. “He had me moving to see how well I re-set my feet and throw the ball. He wanted to see how I would react to different things.”

Carpenter admitted it felt a little bit like an exam, but he didn’t have to worry about his grade since Bell gave him a pep talk ahead of time.

"He told me no matter what you do, you are going to walk away with an offer,” Carpenter said. “That relieved the stress, so it was like, 'OK, I can go out here and just throw the ball."

‘I just had a feeling’

Carpenter verbally committed to Indiana within a week of receiving the offer before ever setting foot on campus.

The phone call he had with Hoosiers coach Tom Allen the night he got his scholarship offer was a big reason why. Carpenter spoke with Allen for three hours over the phone that night and the two didn’t spend much time talking about football.

They talked about Allen’s professional journey, how he get to Indiana and the sacrifices his family made along the way. They also spoke about Carpenter’s family — he’s the oldest of five siblings — and his life off the field.

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Carpenter had received nearly 20 scholarship offers at that time including ones from the likes of Ball State, Marshall and Toledo, but hadn’t had an interaction with a coach quite like that one.

“He wasn't selling me no drink," Carpenter said, with a laugh. “I could tell coach Allen was special.”

An official visit would come later, but Carpenter said he spent the days that followed feeling convinced Indiana would be a great fit given the way he clicked with Bell and Allen and how the offensive coordinator’s spread offense fit his skill set.

So why wait?

Carpenter called Allen to verbally commit after going 3-0 during a 7-on-7 event.

“He was like, ‘are you sure? As a quarterback, you are the leader of the class, if you aren't 100% we are willing to wait,’” Carpenter said of the conversation. “I just had a feeling, I knew where I wanted to go.”

Carpenter’s faith was rewarded in June when his official visit only reinforced what he already knew.

He loved his time in Bloomington when he got to meet the rest of the coaching staff, met with Allen alongside his parents and hung out with fellow verbal commits Brody Kosin, Judah Jenkin, and Javier Etheridge. Carpenter’s host that weekend was Dexter Williams II, who is rehabbing a knee injury he suffered last year.

While Carpenter has heard a “little bit” from other schools since his commitment, he’s not entertaining those calls. He’s focused on helping the coaching staff build out Indiana’s 2024 class with an eye on enrolling early at midyear.

Carpenter has been a year ahead in school academically since the eighth grade and already met all the requirements needed to graduate.

“My recruiting started off very slow, but everything happens for a reason,” Carpenter said. “I’m grateful for how everything went cause it all led to Indiana.”

Michael Niziolek is the Indiana beat reporter for The Herald-Times. You can follow him on Twitter @michaelniziolek.

This article originally appeared on The Herald-Times: Indiana football recruiting: Why Ohio QB Tim Carpenter picked Hoosiers