The Indiana Hoosiers came into the 2026 season knowing their biggest question would be at the quarterback position. After Fernando Mendoza won the Heisman Trophy while leading Indiana to the national championship, there were awfully big shoes to fill in Bloomington and Curt Cignetti spun the transfer portal quarterback wheel once again and brought in Josh Hoover from TCU. Hoover was always an interesting choice for the Hoosiers, as he was a high-variance quarterback for the Horned Frogs -- which represented a departure from the stability and consistency Mendoza provided.
In 36 games with TCU, Hoover completed 65.2% of his passes for 9,629 yards with 81 touchdowns and 33 interceptions. The highs were high, but the lows could be incredibly frustrating in Fort Worth. Given the way Cignetti's last two transfer quarterbacks -- Mendoza and Kurtis Rourke -- performed and improved with Indiana, most gave him the benefit of the doubt that he would be able to get the best out of Hoover while reining in some of his gunslinger tendencies.
However, after No. 5 Indiana survived a scare from Northwestern in a 29-23 victory Friday, we've yet to see it fully click for Hoover and the Hoosiers' passing attack, despite Indiana boasting one of the best receiving corps in the country. Against North Texas and Western Kentucky the offense took time to get warmed up before eventually pulling away, but in neither game were the Hoosiers ever in peril. But against Northwestern, a similar slow start nearly cost them, as Aidan Chiles caught fire in the second half to carve up the typically stout Indiana defense and created real stress for the Hoosiers.
Hoover's performance against Northwestern raised some red flags about his ability to get Indiana to that ceiling. His raw stats weren't bad -- 19 for 29 for 201 yards and one touchdown, with a rushing touchdown as well -- but the aerial attack was not consistently threatening and that was part of the reason the Wildcats were able to hang around deep into the fourth quarter. The flashes of brilliance remain from Hoover.
He orchestrated two long drives in the second and third quarters where he was in rhythm and picked apart the Northwestern defense, taking advantage of the skill gap between his star receivers, Charlie Becker and Nick Marsh, and the Wildcats' secondary. Some of his back shoulder throws to Becker in particular harkened back to what we saw a year ago from this Hoosiers offense. Josh Hoover connects with Charlie Becker for a 23-yard gain to move @IndianaFootball inside the 10 💪 pic.twitter.com/3wgV3wnBD7 However, those advantages should've been apparent all game, but Hoover wasn't able to consistently deliver the ball to his playmakers on the outside.
Of his 19 completions in the game, 10 of them came on those two drives -- which yielded 10 of Indiana's points A year ago, Mendoza would ruthlessly attack the weak point of an opposing defense, identifying whichever of Becker, Omar Cooper and Elijah Surratt had the mismatch and exploiting it over and over. To this point, Hoover hasn't shown that same kind of consistent efficiency. On Friday night, Lee Beebe Jr. bailed the Hoosiers out with a dominant second half rushing performance after Turbo Richard went down with an injury, breaking loose for multiple long runs to set up scores to keep Indiana in front.
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