Illinois football star drops massive announcement about 2025 season

While there have been double-digit departures in the transfer portal, Illinois football officially has its leader back.

We are a few weeks into the transfer portal season, and the Illini haven’t had much good news. While we haven’t had any starters depart from the program, good news was needed to change momentum. On Saturday evening, we received that good news.

Just days prior, Illinois starting quarterback Luke Altmyer did an interview and said some good things about the program, but he also said he didn’t know what the future held. Well, that future is now decided.

Altmyer took to social media on Saturday with a big announcement.

The fact that Altmyer is back is huge for the Illinois football program. Without him, we would have to either go out in the transfer portal and get a quarterback, or the other option would be to start someone who is already on the roster. Those players don’t have experience, though.

Illinois has also had two quarterbacks on the depth chart depart the program via the transfer portal already. Losing Donovan Leary and Cal Swanson signaled to me that they knew they weren’t going to get a shot and Altmyer was returning. Now it is official. We are getting our quarterback back.

The Illinois football offense around Luke Altmyer is a little murky right now

The Illini needed Altmyer back in the mix. He gives us a chance next season to at least repeat a nine-win campaign, something that hasn’t happened in program history.

But there are a bunch of question marks around Altmyer. My biggest issue is the offensive line. The Illinois offensive line had one high-level blocker and that was JC Davis. He is now departing for the NFL. I think Miles McVay is a must-get out of the transfer portal to help solve the offensive line issue.

Cole Rusk should be healthy and start at tight end. Illinois is losing leading wide receivers Pat Bryant and Zakhari Franklin. Those are two big blows. We need to go out and get another pass catcher or two for Altmyer.

Thankfully, we have the biggest piece to the puzzle returning. Altmyer is back in the fold, and now hopefully, the rest of the dominoes fall into place.