5 painful observations from the Illinois football loss to Penn State

3. Illinois went away from pushing the ball down the field

I never thought I would say this about an Illinois football team. It has been a long time since we have had a team that could push the ball down the field, but I think the best attribute about the current Illinois offense is the ability to throw the ball for more than 10 yards.

Luke Altmyer has been great this season when pushing the ball down the field. When he attempts passes of at least 10 yards, Altmyer is 30-of-49 for 592 yards, seven touchdowns, and zero interceptions. That is a 61.2% completion rate as well.

Those are incredible numbers for throwing those distances. Altmyer didn’t get a lot of downfield looks against Penn State, though. The first drive of the game was the big series when we scored a touchdown. Altmyer was able to find Zakhari Franklin for some big gains.

For the most part, those downfield passes stopped after the first series. Altmyer had a few big gains through the air, but he wasn’t able to get going for much of the final three quarters. I would have liked to have seen him air it out more before the final possession of the game.

There are reasons why I think Illinois went away from pushing the ball down the field. I believe a large reason is that Penn State could do whatever it wanted against the Illini offensive line.

Out of the 26 pass attempts from Altmyer on Saturday night, Penn State was able to get pressure on him on 21 of those attempts. That is way too much pressure. We have to be better up front. Illinois sees offensive movement when we push the ball down the field. We can’t do that if Altmyer is constantly seeing the opposing defense in the backfield.