Kurtis Rourke: A Canadian Star Shining in Indiana
When you walk into the Indiana football facility, you might spot Kurtis Rourke sporting a shirt that reads, “BRING YOUR EH GAME,” adorned with the iconic red and white Canadian maple leaf flag. This shirt is more than just a piece of clothing; it’s a testament to Rourke’s pride in his Canadian roots. In 2019, during his first year of college in the United States, Rourke made sure to keep up with his home country’s sports scene by purchasing the NBA League Pass to watch the Toronto Raptors’ historic run to an NBA championship. His admiration for Canadian hero Terry Fox, who ran a marathon for 143 consecutive days in 1980 after losing his right leg to cancer, speaks volumes about his character.
“I’m very proud to be Canadian,” Rourke, the Indiana star quarterback, shared. Growing up in Oakville, Ontario, and attending high school there for all but one year, Rourke’s Canadian upbringing has been a significant influence on his life. “I don’t shy away from talking about it, talking about where I’m from and where I was raised because that really shaped me into who I am,” he added.
Rourke has been instrumental in leading the Hoosiers to a school-record 11 wins during the regular season. Now, he’s set to guide Indiana into what is arguably the biggest game in the program’s history. The Hoosiers, who were initially picked to finish 17th out of 18 schools in the Big Ten’s preseason poll, are gearing up to face Notre Dame in the first round of the College Football Playoff. The game is scheduled for Friday night at 8 p.m. ET and will be broadcast on ABC/ESPN.
But Rourke isn’t just playing for Indiana; he’s representing an entire nation. No Canadian quarterback has ever played in a college football game of this magnitude. This includes his older brother Nathan, who led Ohio University to three consecutive bowl victories and now plays for the BC Lions in the Canadian Football League.
“I hope Kurtis understands how many people here are rooting for him,” Nathan said. “Hopefully, he’ll feel that.”
According to ESPN Research, Kurtis Rourke is one of only three Canadian quarterbacks to start at the Power 4 level this millennium, joining Christian Veilleux (Pittsburgh) and Jesse Palmer (Florida). Veilleux, originally from Ottawa, played high school football in Maryland and began his college career at Penn State before transferring to Pitt. He now plays for Georgia State. Palmer, who is now an ESPN college football analyst and host of “The Bachelor,” played 27 games with 14 starts for former Gators coach Steve Spurrier from 1997 to 2000.
While Canadian players at other positions, like Carolina Panthers running back Chuba Hubbard, have found opportunities in American college football, quarterbacks have faced unique challenges. The differences in rules between Canadian and American football, such as a longer and wider field, 12 players on each side, and unlimited motion, have historically deterred American college coaches from recruiting Canadian quarterbacks.
“If you’re athletic and you’re big and you’re strong and can bench a lot and run a good 40 time, you can be coached on the intricacy of playing those [non-QB] positions,” Palmer explained. “But for a long time, with the rules the way they are, the stigma was, you can’t dedicate the development time [for quarterbacks]. Kurtis’ success is removing that stigma … and that’s going to provide Canadian quarterbacks with more opportunities south of the border.”
Rourke is also giving “The Great White North” a college football player and team to rally behind. In Canada, college football is still a niche sport, with ice hockey, basketball, soccer, and professional football taking precedence.
Dave Naylor, who has covered football in Canada for over three decades and now works for TSN, Canada’s largest sports TV channel, noted that Rourke is already a household name in Canada due to Nathan’s CFL success. However, if Indiana manages to defeat the Fighting Irish and continue their remarkable season, Kurtis could become one of the biggest stories in the country.
“When Canadians see something Canadian blow up in the American media, that’s their signal to pay attention … it gets people here excited,” Naylor said. He will be in South Bend reporting from the game. “And as well as opening up the eyes to American coaches with what Kurtis Rourke is doing, there’s all these little Kurtis Rourkes across Canada that are going to see this. That’s significant.”
The Rourke Brothers: A Tale of Determination
As a child, Nathan Rourke stumbled upon his dad’s old VHS highlight tape of the Green Bay Packers’ 1996-97 Super Bowl-winning team. Instantly captivated, he chose to watch it over cartoons during his limited TV time. “I just wanted to be Brett Favre,” Nathan recalled.
Kurtis, wanting to emulate his older brother, began playing football at the age of five, just two years after Nathan. “I developed a love and passion myself,” Kurtis said. “But it definitely got started with Nathan.”
Their passion for the game was evident even in high school. Andrew Saulez, a teacher and basketball coach at Holy Trinity Catholic Secondary School, where the Rourkes attended, remembered them always asking if they could watch game film if they completed their classwork. “And as soon as they finished, they’d be breaking down game film,” Saulez said. “They were students of the game. They fell in love with getting better and the grind.”
Nathan quickly became a star quarterback for Holy Trinity. However, he soon realized the level of competition was different in the United States. To catch the attention of college football coaches, he began attending American camps the summer before his junior season.
“You could see the gap, in terms of the development and how far I was behind some of these guys,” Nathan said. “I saw the separation. They were just a lot better. And because I was from Canada, I wasn’t going to get recruited at really any type of level.”
Justin Dillon, who operates 730 Scouting, saw potential in Nathan and offered to help him transfer to Edgewood Academy in Elmore, Alabama, which needed a quarterback. “The weird thing is, I’ve never met [Dillon], money was never exchanged,” Nathan recalled. “He just wanted to help. But to this day, I couldn’t pick him out of a crowd.”
Arrangements were made for Nathan to live with a host family. However, two weeks before the move, the host family canceled. As a result, Kurtis and his mom relocated to Alabama with Nathan.
For Nathan, it was a dream opportunity, leading Edgewood to a state championship. For Kurtis, moving a thousand miles away during his sophomore year was challenging. “I knew how much it meant to Nathan,” Kurtis said. “But it was still a really tough time because I didn’t really have any friends. I was just trying to survive.”
The culture shock was significant. Kurtis couldn’t understand why players wore jerseys to school on game days. At just 5-foot-5, he found himself on the bench for both the football and basketball teams. However, the move to Alabama eventually opened doors for both brothers.
Nathan’s Journey to Success
Nathan threw 59 touchdowns with only three interceptions during his lone season at Edgewood. Despite his impressive performance, signing day came and went without any FBS scholarship offers. “It was crushing,” he said. “My family had upended their lives to come and support me in this last-ditch effort to try and get into a Division I school and get a scholarship.”
Undeterred, Nathan enrolled at Fort Scott Community College, where he won a starting job and earned all-conference honors. Eventually, he received offers from Akron and Ohio, where he started for three seasons and broke a school record for career passing efficiency.
Meanwhile, Kurtis returned home for his junior year of high school. “When he came back to us, he was 7 inches taller and 40 pounds bigger,” said Holy Trinity football coach Joe Moscato.
Kurtis continued to grow, leading Holy Trinity to a regional championship as a senior. However, he faced the same challenges in getting noticed by American colleges as his brother had. To improve his chances, Kurtis stayed in high school for the 13th grade, a common practice in Canada.
Ohio quarterbacks coach Scott Isphording remembered Kurtis visiting Athens to watch Nathan play. Despite Nathan’s success as an All-MAC quarterback, Isphording initially had doubts about Kurtis due to the level of competition he faced in Canada. However, each time Isphording saw him, Kurtis seemed to be an inch taller. Finally, Isphording traveled north to scout Kurtis.
“The first throw was a thing of beauty,” Isphording recalled. “Just wow, where did that come from?”
Despite his talent, few schools showed interest in Kurtis, aside from Buffalo offensive coordinator Andy Kotelnicki, now Penn State’s playcaller. With Nathan advocating for him, Ohio eventually offered Kurtis a scholarship. “They only knew who I was because of Nathan,” Kurtis said, who had grown nearly a full foot from the time he moved to Alabama to when he enrolled at Ohio.
After backing up his brother for one season, Kurtis succeeded him as Ohio’s starter. In 2022, he was named MAC Player of the Year after leading the league with 3,257 passing yards and 25 touchdowns.
This past offseason, Kurtis entered the transfer portal, and coach Curt Cignetti brought him to Indiana, where he emerged as one of the top passers in the country, ranking third nationally in QBR (85.7), only behind Heisman finalists Cam Ward and Dillon Gabriel.
“I owe a lot to Nathan,” Kurtis said. “We’ve done a lot for each other. I’m just grateful for the opportunity to support him in Alabama. It ultimately led to where I am, truly.”
Breaking Barriers for Canadian Quarterbacks
Jesse Palmer’s father, Bill, played for the CFL’s Ottawa Rough Riders. However, Palmer discovered college football in America through card collecting, noticing NFL players’ alma maters on the back of trading cards. He later bought college football magazines and even owned an Indiana Hoosiers hat. “That’s how hardcore I was,” he said. “I really got into it.”
Like the Rourkes, Palmer dreamed of playing college football. He sent his high school highlights on VHS tapes to top passing schools in the country. The first coach to reach out was Nick Saban, then at Michigan State. However, Palmer committed to the Gators a week after receiving a call from Spurrier.
Upon arriving in Gainesville, Palmer quickly realized the differences in American football. “During a goal-line drill, we were trying to throw a football into the end zone,” he said. “It was like I was playing in a closet.”
At Ohio, Kurtis initially struggled to adjust to American rules. In Canada, the game continues for one more play after the clock strikes zero. In America, the game’s over. “The first time we were doing a two-minute drill here, Kurtis wasn’t aware of that,” Isphording said. “I said, ‘Kurtis, when the clock hits triple zeroes, that’s the game.'”
Larry Jusdanis, believed to be the first Canadian university quarterback invited to the NFL combine, played in the CFL from 1995 to 1998. He understands the challenges Canadian quarterbacks face on both sides of the border. The CFL mandates that 21 of 45 players on a roster be Canadians. However, until 2020, that designation didn’t apply to the starting quarterback, leaving CFL teams with little incentive to play a Canadian quarterback over an American.
“It was rare for a [CFL team] to go get a Canadian quarterback and develop him,” Jusdanis said, “because they could go to the U.S. and get one that’s played football since age 6 or 7.”
To help Canadians develop in Canada and still get noticed while acclimating to American football, Jusdanis launched Clarkson Football North in 2016. The Mississauga, Ontario, school is Canada’s version of IMG Academy, the Florida prep school that prepares athletes to play in college. Football North schedules several high school powerhouses in the States, including Ohio’s Massillon Washington, St. Ignatius, and St. Edward this past season. Jusdanis noted his school has now produced roughly 60 FBS players, including Ohio sophomore quarterback Callum Wither.
Jusdanis said the Rourkes are “breaking down barriers” for future Canadian quarterbacks, both in college football, CFL, and potentially the NFL, too.
Off his breakout season with BC in 2022, when he threw for 3,349 yards and totaled 32 touchdowns, Nathan is now the highest-paid player in the CFL ($749,200). Kurtis could earn way more if he makes it in the NFL. ESPN Football analyst Mel Kiper currently ranks him as the No. 6 quarterback for the upcoming NFL draft.
“Nathan became a big, big deal in this country… because it’s been so rare for a Canadian to start at quarterback in the CFL,” Naylor said. “Now Kurtis [in the playoff] is taking another chip off the rock, that long-running narrative these guys can’t play.”
Murray Drinkwalter, who has officiated high school football in Ontario for over four decades, considers the Rourkes two of the best quarterbacks he’s ever seen in person. “But there’ve been some other great Canadian quarterbacks that never had a shot down south,” Drinkwalter said. “You’d be surprised by the amount of people up here that are following Indiana football.”
The Rourke brothers hope to inspire young Canadians to play quarterback and pave the way for future Canadian quarterbacks, who won’t have to jump through the hoops they did.
“I have tremendous pride in where I’m from,” Nathan said. “And it’s been awesome to watch Kurtis. I’m super proud of him, not just as a brother, but as a fellow Canadian.”
Kurtis knows his brother won’t be the only Canadian watching him play in South Bend. “I know there haven’t been too many opportunities for Canadians like this,” he said. “It won’t be front of mind. But it’s definitely in the back of my mind — that I’m doing this for Canada.”
Originally Written by: Jake Trotter
