Luke Altmyer’s is off to a phenomenal start. Through 4 games Luke Altmyer is averaging 215 yards per game, has 10 touchdowns to no interceptions and is completing 71% of his passes. Those are incredible stats which got me to thinking about the golden era of Quarterbacks at Illinois and what QB play means in general to Illinois’ success. You can argue that every great season of Illinois Football since 1981 has been at the hands of a pretty darn good signal caller. Signal callers I grew accustomed to at a very early age…
You see, Illinois Football is my first love. My Mom and Step Dad starting taking me to games in 1982, hell they got Married in what is now Grange Grove for the first Illini Tailgreat contest, they won. I was there as the ring bearer in my powder blue tux. In those days Illinois was on a run of great College Quarterbacks that would rival any Big Ten school despite Purdue’s moniker as the Cradle of Quarterbacks. Not only did we have great QBs but we won and we won more than at any other time in my life.
Think about this run and the successes that accompanied
- 1980 – Dave Wilson 3100+ yards (7th in school history) and a Big Ten Record 621@ Ohio State (we lost that game 49-42 btw).
- 1981-1982 Tony Eason averaged 300 yards+ passing for his career (25th all time in NCAA Football history and #1 at Illinois) His 1982 total is 1st all time for single season yardage at Illinois (3671), and 1981 is 2nd (3360) still to this day!
- 1983-1985 Jack Trudeau passes for a school record 8,725 yards and the third best total in school history of 3329 yards in 1985.
- 1986-87 – Lets not talk about that…
- 1988-89 – Jeff George leads team to 10-2 record in 89 and ends up being the number one overall pick of the Colts.
So in the 1980s alone Illinois had 4 QBs drafted, the single greatest passing performance in Big Ten History that stands 44 years later, the all time leading passer, the top 3 single season passing records for yards and 5 of the top 10 (Wilson and George in 89 with 2738).
It didn’t end there as I would be remiss in not talking about George’s successor, Jason Verduzco. Verduzco is 5th in career passing yards (7532) and has the 8th best total for a single season in school history (3014).
Pretty long winded way of saying I grew up thinking Illinois was a QB school. Also a pretty long way to illustrate that sustained success is directly tied to QB play. Starting in 1981 (1980 was Mike White’s first year and he strung together a roster) Illinois had 9 winning seasons, one .500 season that included a bowl and 2 losing seasons. Care to guess the losing seasons? You got in 1986-87.
In the 31 seasons of Football after Verduzco Illinois has… 7 winning seasons and 9 bowl game appearances! The bowl game number should be even as Illinois missed a bowl at 7-4 in 1981 and 1984.
Illinois had winning seasons in 1994, 99, 2001, 07, 10,11 and 22. Other than 94 (4th best defense in the country) let’s look at the QB play in those seasons.
1999 and 2001 – Kurt Kittner: 2nd in Career yards, 1st in TDs (70), 1st and 2nd in TD passes in a season (27 in 01 and 24 in 99 hmmm).
2007 – Juice Willams: 4th all time in passing yards, 2nd all time in TD passes and total yards.
2010-2011 – Nathan Scheelhaase: 1ST in all time yards, 3rd in passing yards for a career, 3rd in career TD passes, 3rd all time in passing efficiency 2nd in career completion %.
2022 – Tommy Devito: Single season comp percentage leader, 3rd all time in single season efficiency.
QB play determines a lot in the world of Football and Illinois has a signal caller now that may jump into the conversations of these greats.
Currently Altmyer is on track to pass for 2800 yards which would put him 9th all time, 32 TDs which would be first and the same with his completion percentage at 71%. Normally it is really hard to extrapolate the first few games of a season into totals but when you consider Altmyer really didn’t throw much in the 4th Quarter against EIU and CMU and the level of competition vs Kansas and Nebraska I don’t think it’s unreasonable if Altmyer stays healthy he posts a top 10 season in yards, touchdowns, completion percentage, and efficiency.
Clearly having a good QB matters to team success and we have a darn good one that is looking to rewrite the record book. You combine that with the improvements on defense and Barry Lunney Jr. finding his stride in year 3 as the OC and Illinois is on track for a special season regardless of what happens in Happy Valley on Saturday Night.
Go Illini
Great article. Brings back lots of good memories.