Plenty of players from the Allen era started and were huge contributors on this team. There was nothing I saw in the Nebraska or Washington game that made me believe TJ was better than Rourke or even capable of consistently leading the offense at a high level. The offense felt very limited while he was starting and relied heavily on the run game which is why I was surprised so many people wanted to see Trayvon get his shot against ND when we needed a strong pass attack to come back. That was one decision of Cigs I don’t question. We were ride or die with Rourke. He gave us the best chance to win.
This is not me hating on TJ at all. I think he needed another offseason of development as you can see he has talent, but he couldn’t execute the offense consistently. Consistency being the key word. There are examples of beautiful plays such as the great TD throw to Saratoga during the NEB game, but there is a reason we didn’t see those types of plays against UW. There’s no way the coaches are going to limit TJ in that game simply because “he is not our guy”. All of these guys are their guys. They had to recruit all of them for retention when they hired in. Tayven was always steadfast in his commitment to Indiana when so many others were jumping in the portal and for that I will always root for him.
