2024 Illinois football quarterback preseason confidence grades

Coming into the 2024 season, the Illinois football team has one of the better starting quarterbacks leading the way in recent memory.

Luke Altmyer is back for a second season with the Illini. He threw for 1,833 yards, 13 touchdowns, and 10 interceptions in 2023. Those numbers should improve now that he has more weapons and a full season and offseason under his belt.

Depth: 6.8/10

Altmyer still has a lot to prove behind center. He has moments where he has shown his former four-star ranking, but he can make some bad plays. Illinois could be in a much worse position at starting quarterback, though.

While I am comfortable with Altmyer as our starting quarterback entering 2024, the depth behind him is a bit worrisome.

Unlike the 2023 campaign when Illinois had Ball State transfer John Paddock behind center, the depth behind Altmyer in 2024 has zero experience. Paddock had years of player time, but I am pegging Donovan Leary as the main backup and Cal Swanson as the next option. Neither has taken a snap in a college game.

Stability: 6.2/10

There are multiple factors that go into the stability grade. I am looking at both durability and reliability.

Altmyer should be a good quarterback for the Illini this season, but he needs to stay on the football field. He only played 589 snaps last season due to an injury. With so much inexperience behind him, having Altmyer upright and healthy becomes even more important in 2024.

On top of Altmyer’s injury issues last season, the reason the stability grade is so low goes back to the depth issues. You can’t rely on a backup this season because we don’t know what the backups can do on the field.

Illinois doesn’t have much stability when the backups haven’t played a snap. If the worst-case scenario goes down and we need to go to one of the backups, I don’t know what I am getting. That doesn’t give me comfort and drops the stability grade down a bit.

Future: 8.5/10

The future grade is about projecting the Illinois quarterback position out in future seasons. With the transfer portal so key now, this grade gets harder.

I have the future much brighter than the depth and stability grades. The reason I have this grade so high is that Altmyer is only a junior. He can have a good year, and Illinois will likely get him back for his senior campaign.

On top of Altmyer being around for the next two seasons, I do like the potential of the Illinois depth chart when it comes to the quarterback position. I don’t know how much stability there is right now, but the future looks pretty bright to me.

Leary and Swanson should duke it out for the backup job, and I think the future will include Trey Petty, who won the 7A Mississippi Mr. Football award this past season. He should have a say in the starting job after Altmyer is gone.

In addition to that, both Swanson and Petty were top 1000 recruits in their respective recruiting classes.

Final Grade: 7.2/10 (C-)

When you average it all out, Illinois’ quarterback room gets a 7.2 out of 10 in the preseason. The future grade helps balance out the stability grade.

All of this changes if Altmyer can stay healthy and fling the ball around like we know he can. He is a talented quarterback who can lead Illinois to great heights.