Video highlights of Indiana football QB Josh Hoover throwing at practice
Watch highlights of Indiana football quarterback Josh Hoover throwing the ball at practice on Tuesday, Aug. 11:
BLOOMINGTON, IN – Indiana football quarterback Josh Hoover will make his much-anticipated Hoosiers debut against North Texas in much different circumstances than he ever imagined.
Hoover spent six months committed to play for IU back in 2021 at a time when sustained success for the team proved elusive.
On Saturday, Hoover will step under center for a program transformed, fresh off 16-0 season that brought the College Football Playoff national championship trophy to Bloomington. Hoover made strides of his own as a multi-year starter for TCU, going from an under-recruited 3-star prospect to one of the most sought after quarterbacks in the portal.
With Indiana coach Curt Cignetti valuing production over potential, Hoover became his top target to replace Fernando Mendoza. The reunion came together in a hurried courtship right after the Hoosiers returned home from beating Alabama in the Rose Bowl.
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Spurning interest from other programs looking to set up visits, Hoover committed to IU fully aware of the expectations that came with the decision. In one season, Mendoza became the most celebrated student-athlete in school history.
Hoover knew he needed to be “all in,” as his father Alex told The Herald-Times — part of the USA TODAY Network. In truth, Mendoza’s accomplishments, from winning a Heisman to a Big Ten title to dominating the CFP, matched the quarterback’s own ambitions.
“He wanted to see if he measured up,” Alex Hoover said. “If you’re trying to play on Sunday someday, that’s what you have to do.”
Indiana football and Josh Hoover did this dance before
As a junior quarterback at Rockwall-Heath High School, Hoover expressed reluctance about flying out to Indiana’s campus for the first time.
Then-coach Tom Allen and his offensive coordinator Nick Sheridan asked Hoover to take an unofficial visit to the school in order to see him throw and made it clear they wouldn’t take his commitment without working him out.
Despite having only one other Power Five offer at the time from Arkansas, Hoover felt the request signaled the Hoosiers staff had reservations about his talent level. He took over as the Hawks starter as a sophomore and wasn’t an unknown quantity. He competed in a talent-rich area outside of Dallas at the highest level of Texas high school football (Class 6A).
He threw for 3,556 yards and 36 touchdowns the previous fall and led his team to the state quarterfinals. Hoover would go on to beat out Ashton Jeanty for the 2021 Landry Award, given to the top high school player from North Texas.
“He goes, ‘Dad, I’m not going to Indiana to throw if they don’t think I’m good enough,’” Alex Hoover said. “I said, ‘What else do you have going on this weekend?’”
Alex resolved the lone logistical hurdle of the trip by using air miles he saved up to cover what he described as “crazy expensive” last-minute flights out to Indiana.
Whatever doubts Hoover had about IU’s intentions faded away when he arrived in Bloomington. Sheridan put him through a 20-minute workout at Mellencamp Pavilion with graduate assistants lining up as receivers. They clicked, and he developed an equally strong bond with Allen in the months that followed.
“Two fine coaches and human beings,” Alex said.
Hoover started working the phones to recruit other high school prospects to join Indiana’s 2022 class. That class would end up including the likes of Carter Smith, Omar Cooper Jr., Bray Lynch and Isaiah Jones, all players who started against Miami in the national title game.
Indiana’s struggles that fall did little to dampen Hoover’s enthusiasm about signing with the Hoosiers. At midseason, he returned to Bloomington for an official visit to watch IU face Michigan State in the Battle for the Old Brass Spittoon. It wasn’t until Allen parted ways with Sheridan after the Hoosiers 2-10 finish that the courtship unraveled.
“It rocked his world a little bit,” Alex said.
The initial conversation Hoover had with Sheridan’s replacement, Walt Bell, underlined his uncertain future.
“They didn’t really click on the one phone call they had,” Alex said. “It didn’t sound like it was his kind of offense, and Bell didn’t really talk about how Josh would fit into the system. He came off the phone, and knew it wasn’t going to work out.”
Sonny Dykes, TCU’s newly hired coach, offered Hoover a landing spot in the Power Five. Dykes heavily pursued Hoover at SMU, but couldn’t convince Hoover to accept an offer from a Mustangs program that was still a few years away from joining the ACC. Now in the Big 12, Dykes landed the quarterback he coveted.
“Coach Dykes didn’t blame Josh (for turning down SMU). He said he would love to end up at a Power Five school someday himself,” Alex said. “Some of the other coaches Josh called weren’t as happy with that explanation, but TCU checked all the boxes.”
Indiana football’s Josh Hoover wrestled with transfer portal decision
Following the 2025 season, Hoover’s internal struggle over his future mirrored the one Mendoza faced at Cal. After getting mixed NFL Draft feedback, Hoover wasn’t sure about the best path forward.
He loved TCU, the place where he worked his way up from the scout team to become one of the most accomplished quarterbacks in program history.
In 2024, he set the Horned Frogs’ single-season record with 3,949 passing yards. Had he stayed, Hoover would have likely broken the program’s career record for completions, passing yards and touchdowns. His production helped the Horned Frogs win nine games in back-to-back seasons.
Hoover also built a connection to the community and felt a degree of loyalty to Dykes, the coach who offered him the Power Five opportunity that nearly eluded him.
“I can’t tell you how hard that was for him,” Alex said. “He wrestled with that for a lot, and the bowl game was coming up, the Alamo Bowl, and he was still going to practice because he was undecided.”
Like Mendoza, Hoover graduated early and started working toward a masters degree. He had ambitions of winning a national title and playing in the pros, in that order. Hoover started leaning toward a fresh start once TCU offensive coordinator Kendal Briles left for the same position at South Carolina.
“Coach Briles probably would be the best man in Josh’s wedding,” Alex said. “He might not have gone in the portal if he had stayed.”
Briles’ departure meant learning a new offensive system without the benefit of any existing continuity on the staff or roster to facilitate the process. Hoover thought heading somewhere with an established play caller and veterans on the roster familiar with their scheme would put him in a better position to reach his goals.
“It felt like it was time for a new chapter,” Alex said.
Indiana football coach Curt Cignetti wasn’t selling, he was telling
Indiana players would normally help out recruiting the transfer portal by hosting prospects and taking them to dinner, but the postseason calendar last winter didn’t allow that. Cignetti leaned on his staff to do the heavy lifting in order to keep the roster focused on winning a national title.
Some Hoosiers with eligibility left still found ways to lend a hand.
Jones took it upon himself to reach out to Hoover, still friendly thanks to a group chat including players from Indiana’s 2022 signing class. The linebacker had every intention of running it back in 2026 and knew Hoover would be a difference-maker for the team.
“I heard his name was in the hat,” Jones told The Herald-Times. “I reached out, kind of just, ‘Hey, man, what are you thinking? We’d love to have you here if you want to come back.’ Just that kind of stuff. The connection was still there.”
Cignetti’s staff didn’t waste time making Hoover their top priority.
Then-Indiana quarterbacks coach Chandler Whitmer made initial contact — the Hoosiers were the first team the TCU transfer heard from — and Hoover ended up on a plane back to Bloomington a day after the portal window officially opened.
Operating on little sleep, Indiana’s coaching staff hosted more than a dozen high-profile transfers on campus and spent Saturday, Jan. 3, rotating them through the football offices on the second floor of Memorial Stadium. Cignetti gave his staff the weekend to focus on transfer recruiting before turning their focus to game planning for a matchup against Oregon in the Peach Bowl.
“The staff was incredible,” Alex said. “That was horrible timing based on the way the portal worked right in the middle of the national championship run.”
Their host on the visit provided another connection to the past.
Years earlier, Hoover met IU tight end James Bomba when he toured Bloomington back in high school. It was Bomba’s sister, Mason, then an on-campus recruiting assistant, who greeted the family at the airport. She got Hoover where he needed to go, mostly to various meetings with members of the coaching staff.
“It was all about football,” Alex said. “It wasn’t like he needed to see the locker rooms or anything.”
Hoover’s multiple sit downs with Cignetti offered him insight into the coach’s winning blueprint. If Cignetti was tired from the long hours he kept that week, he didn’t show it.
“I’ll tell you the simplest way I know how to say it — he’s a straight shooter,” Alex said with a laugh. “He just looks you square in the eye, and there’s no hesitation in his voice, he doesn’t think anything he knows, and I don’t mean that arrogantly. He’s got a plan and a process. He wasn’t selling, he was telling.”
The growing list of accolades for Cignetti’s quarterbacks highlighted the effectiveness of his fine-tuned approach, with four of his past five starters winning conference player of the year honors. All but one of those quarterbacks were transfers.
In turn, Hoover expressed a simple desire to get to work.
Hoover’s visit wrapped up without him committing, but he didn’t leave the staff waiting for long. His father sensed on the plane ride home where things were headed, and Hoover made it official with a call to Cignetti on the morning of Jan. 4.
“It just felt like a slam dunk,” Alex said.
Indiana football running it back with another football “nerd”
Hoover made his unofficial Indiana debut during the annual spring game as the jumbotron at Memorial Stadium played highlights of the Las Vegas Raiders drafting Mendoza with the No. 1 overall pick. With a copy of Mendoza’s Heisman Trophy in the building, Hoover knew from the start Mendoza would cast a long shadow.
Hoover chose to embrace the challenge from the start.
“Before committing, somebody brought that up to him,” Alex said. “He was going to follow Fernando, and he just said, ‘Heck yeah.'”
Hoover’s attitude helped ensure a seamless transition in the offseason. He spends the same long hours as Mendoza studying film and organized the same kind of throwing sessions his predecessor leaned on to establish chemistry with his new teammates.
“Josh is one of the hardest workers I’ve ever seen,” Charlie Becker told reporters during fall camp. “He texts me all the time, like every weekend and during weekdays. He will say, ‘Hey, do you want to work on this connection?’ He does that with all the receivers.”
Hoover is also in sync with IU quarterback coach Tino Sunseri, who Cignetti brought back to the staff when Whitmer returned to the NFL. Sunseri’s long history with Mike Shanahan and Cignetti made him well-versed in their winning ways.
“Josh tells me that he’s never learned so much about what defenses are trying to do as he has with coach Tino,” Alex said. “He’s a little nerdy about that stuff. He wants to know everything he can.”
Indiana going with a football nerd at quarterback? It’s worked before.
“He fits the mold,” Jones said of Hoover. “And he fit Indiana’s culture.”
Michael Niziolek is the Indiana beat reporter for The Bloomington Herald-Times. You can follow him on X @michaelniziolek and read all his coverage by clicking here.