Luke Altmyer named Illinois starting quarterback

Luke Altmyer‘s decision to transfer from Ole Miss paid off on Monday, as he was officially named the starting quarterback for Illinois.

Altmyer played high school football at Starkville (Miss.) High School, where he was a four-star prospect ranked the No. 232 overall recruit in the 2021 cycle, according to the On3 Consensus, a complete and equally weighted industry-generated average that utilizes all four major recruiting media companies.

And when he entered the transfer portal this offseason, he was ranked the No. 226 overall transfer prospect and the No. 24-ranked quarterback to hit the open market, according to the On3 Transfer Portal Rankings.

Getting the start. @lukealtmyer9 has been named QB1. #Illini // #HTTO // #famILLy pic.twitter.com/pgubEtulaa

— Illinois Football (@IlliniFootball) August 21, 2023

Altmyer attended Ole Miss out of high school, spending two seasons with the Rebels before deciding to take his talents to Champaign. He appeared in five games as a freshman backup quarterback for Ole Miss, where he completed 54.1 percent of his passes for 192 yards and one touchdown on the year.

In his second year, he competed with Jaxson Dart for the team’s starting quarterback job, which prolonged into the season and unfortunately ended with him suffering a shoulder injury in his lone start for the Rebels in Week 2 versus Central Arkansas. He ended the 2022 season completing eight of his 17 pass attempts for 125 yards and two touchdowns in his four-game appearances.

Altmyer had better luck in his most recent quarterback competition, beating out Ball State transfer John Paddock and redshirt-freshman Donovan Leary (brother of current Kentucky quarterback Devin Leary) for the team’s starting job.

Illinois head coach Bret Bielema spoke about the decision to name Altmyer the starter following the announcement, expressing overall excitement about the entire position group as a whole and detailing what separated Altmyer from the rest of the pack.

“We’ll announce today Luke Altmyer will be our starting quarterback going into the Toledo game,” Bielema said. “Last spring through this fall, I’ve been very impressed with the quarterback room in general. To have Barry (Lunney Jr.) back as a returning coordinator but also our QB coach, I think he’s brought a lot of continuity to that room, even though we have new faces.”

“I’ve been very impressed by not just Luke’s play on the football field, but how he’s handled things,” Bielema added. “To walk into this environment, to have a lot of people from the outside world think he’s going to be that guy, to stand in front of his team and give cadence as a quarterback to speak in the huddle but also on the sideline and in the locker room, he’s really done a nice job of balancing all that.”