Illinois football: Luke Altmyer gets high marks from Pro Football Focus

It was a crazy game on Saturday, but the Illinois football team came away with a victory over Toledo.

If anyone says they weren’t worried about the Illini coming away with a win, they were lying. This was Toledo’s game to win, and they couldn’t hold off an Illinois team that started to click in the second half.

After the Rockets drove down and made the game 19-7 with just over 11 minutes left in the third quarter, everything changed for the Illini. A pick-six by Miles Scott completely turned the momentum of the game. It also helped that quarterback Luke Altmyer started to get into a groove.

Altmyer went 7-of-9 for 93 yards and zero touchdowns in the first half of action. In the second half, despite a little blip of bad decision-making, Altmyer got comfortable and started moving the ball down the field. He finished the second half going 11-of-17 for 118 yards, two touchdowns, and that one interception.

Pro Football Focus rates Illinois football quarterback highly after week one

The performance by Altmyer is a big plus to take away from the win over the Rockets. He isn’t just a competent passer, but I think he can be something special for this program.

Pro Football Focus sees this in him as well. They rated Altmyer as the No. 32 quarterback in college football from week one. While this might not sound like an impressive number, you have to remember this was Altmyer’s first game as the starter for the Illini, and he didn’t have a ton of experience before this game either.

Altmyer is dealing with a completely new situation, and he was still looked at as a top 35 quarterback in all of college football. He was ahead of names like Tennessee’s Joe Milton III, Oregon’s Bo Nix, and Auburn’s Payton Thorne.

What boosted Altmyer’s 79.2 rating? His running ability, of course. Altmyer didn’t score too high on his passing, finishing with a rating of 71.3. I imagine that has a lot to do with his interception. But Altmyer was able to secure a 75.7 rating for his running. This running rating is No. 8 among all quarterbacks.

I need to see a bigger sample size, but I am close to saying Altmyer is the best dual-threat quarterback Illinois has had since Nathan Scheelhaase. This week is important. Let’s see if he can continue playing well against Kansas.