JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — Rookie quarterback Blake Bortles makes his eighth start Sunday for the Jacksonville Jaguars, going up against quarterback Andrew Luck and the Indianapolis Colts.

The Jaguars hope that he will continue to duel Luck for the next decade.

There is no doubt that, barring injury, Luck will be facing the Jaguars twice a year for at for the foreseeable future. In his third season, he already is a franchise quarterback.

The Jaguars hope Bortles will be their franchise quarterback, but the jury is still out on him because he has struggled through 7 1/2 games.

He has eight touchdown passes, 14 interceptions and just one victory, although he also doesn’t have a strong supporting case.

In the third game of the season, veteran Jacksonville quarterback Chad Henne was pulled for Bortles with the Colts leading 30-0 at halftime.

Bortles completed 14 of 24 passes for 223 yards with two touchdowns and two interceptions. However, because the Colts were winning a blowout when he came in, it wasn’t a true test. Now he will face the Colts from the opening whistle.

“It’s kind of cool,” Bortles said of his second appearance against Indianapolis. “I’ve never done it before, and (it’s great) to have the opportunity to play them again. You get to go back and watch the first game we played against them, go back and watch the games in between and see how they changed, what they did differently, and you have the opportunity to play against the same guys that you’ve seen once already.

“It’s definitely a neat opportunity.”

The Jaguars are coming off a bye, and Bortles said he went back to Orlando for a long weekend of seeing friends and family.

Regarding what he has to do over the final six games to produce momentum for the offseason, he said, “I think to continue to try and execute. I think we’ve seen some glimpses of the running game and the passing game try to put the whole thing together. I think to continue to learn from things that haven’t gone right and continue to try to improve the things that have. I think that’s the biggest part of it, to try and limit mistakes and definitely learn from them.”

Of what he would consider a successful last six games, he said, “I think it’s more than (winning). Obviously the culture here is more than just winning. (Coach) Gus (Bradley) talks about that all the time. Obviously, that’s a big part of it, but I think it’s about continuing to get better, whatever it be. We talk about victory all the time and achieving that.”

Achieving victory against the Colts will be a tall order.

It never seems to be a good time for the Jaguars to play the Colts and Luck. Playing them after a loss is an even a more difficult task.

Luck has 13 regular-season losses in his three years as the Colts’ quarterback, including a 42-20 defeat to New England Patriots on Sunday night. He is 11-1 the week after those losses, including a 44-17 victory over the Jaguars in September after losing to the Philadelphia Eagles 30-27. The only time he lost two in a row was the first two games of this year. He is 6-2 since.

For Luck, any time seems to be a good time to play the Jaguars. He has won four in a row against them since a 22-17 loss in his rookie season in the third game of Mike Mularkey’s only season as the team’s head coach.

He avenged that defeat with a 27-10 victory in the rematch that year, then won three times against Jacksonville and Bradley the past two seasons, coming out on top 37-3, 30-10 and 44-17.

Luck also threw for 300 yards in each of his past eight games overall, tying a mark set by Drew Brees. He can set the record with another 300-yard game against the Jaguars.

Luck also feasts on struggling teams. The six teams the Colts beat this year are 25-35-1. The four teams they lost to are 28-12.

The Jaguars are the biggest underdog on the board this weekend at 13.5 points.