Indiana Football Quickly Finds New Quarterbacks Coach, Co-Offensive Coordinator

Well, that didn't take long.

On Tuesday evening, reports surfaced the Indiana co-offensive coordinator and quarterbacks Chandler Whitmer was taking a job with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. And later that night, Indiana was finalizing a deal with Tino Sunseri to replace Whitmer, sources confirmed with Hoosiers On SI.

Sunseri was Indiana's co-offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach in 2024, when the Hoosiers went 11-2 with second-team All-Big Ten quarterback Kurtis Rourke and reached the College Football Playoff.

"Coach Tino has been awesome," Rourke said on Dec. 8, 2024, after it was announced that Sunseri was leaving Indiana. "I've developed so much as a quarterback since working with him in January. It's been awesome to see my personal growth as well as the rest of the quarterbacks in the room. I know all of us can say that we've learned and become a better quarterback this year, and a lot of that attributes to Coach Tino."

"Just very happy that he has an opportunity to go and continue his journey, his path, and his dream. Just very grateful for him because he's really accelerated and helped this offense, helped the players become and create opportunities for their personal life, and I'm just happy to see that he's taking advantage of an opportunity for him as well."

Tino Sunseri Indiana Football — Indiana quarterbacks coach Tino Sunseri instructs players during fall practice at the Mellencamp Pavilion on Tuesday, Aug. 6, 2024. | Rich Janzaruk/Herald-Times / USA TODAY NETWORK

After that season, Sunseri took a promotion to become UCLA's offensive coordinator, Indiana replaced him with Whitmer, who came to Bloomington after one season with the Atlanta Falcons, three with the Los Angeles Chargers and one-year stints with Clemson and Ohio State.

Things quickly went bad for UCLA, though, as head coach DeShaun Foster was fired after an 0-3 start. Sunseri and UCLA mutually agreed to part ways after the Bruins' loss to Northwestern the following week.

Sunseri made immediate sense as Whitmer's replacement due to his history with Cignetti. As the quarterbacks coach on Cignetti's staff at James Madison from 2021-23, Sunseri helped develop quarterbacks Cole Johnson, Todd Centeio and Jordan McCloud into conference player of the year winners.

"He's a really good quarterback coach," Cignetti said of Sunseri on Oct. 21, 2024. "Has great relationships with those guys. Student of the game. Communicates really well. I think offensively we do a nice job in terms of our system, giving the quarterback answers. Every play's got an answer. We build the offense around the quarterback."

"I mean, the last four have been Player of the Year in the league, the previous two were one-year transfers that only had moderate success at the places they'd been in the past. One was a dual, one was a pocket guy, two were in between. I just think we do a nice job developing quarterbacks. It's a group effort, team effort. Since Tino has been here, I think he's taken those guys to another level. This will be his fourth year with me, yeah."

Sunseri also has experience working closely with Steve Sarkisian and Nick Saban at Alabama in 2020, along with previous stints on Jeremy Pruitt's Tennessee staff in 2018 and two years at Florida State under Jimbo Fisher.

Sunseri will now return to Bloomington and coach incoming TCU quarterback transfer Josh Hoover, who takes over as the presumed starter for Heisman Trophy winner Fernando Mendoza. At 6-foot-2, Hoover completed 65.9% of his passes for 3,472 yards, 29 touchdowns and 13 interceptions for the Horned Frogs in 2025. He comes to Indiana with one year of eligibility.

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