Penn State is facing a very different Luke Altmyer than it saw in 2023

In Week 4 of the 2023 season, No. 7 Penn State took a trip out to Champaign, Illinois, and dispatched the Fighting Illini 30-13 to get to 3-0. The Nittany Lion's young quarterback, Drew Allar struggled in his third collegiate start, going 16/33 for 208 yards, but he was still much better than Illinois sophomore QB Luke Altmyer who finished 15/28 for 163 yards with four interceptions. 

Three of Alymyer’s four turnovers led directly to Penn State points. Now, with Andy Kotelnicki calling plays instead of Mike Yurcich, Allar has been much better and the Penn State offense won’t need to rely on short fields to find the end zone, which is a good thing because this season’s version of Altmyer is a different quarterback. 

The Fighting Illini come into this Week 5 matchup at Beaver Stadium ranked 19th in the country after a 4-0 start that included an overtime win at No. 22 Nebraska last week. Altmyer completed 21 of his 27 attempts in Lincoln for 215 yards and four touchdowns without a turnover. For the season, the 6-foot-2 205-pound redshirt junior is completing 71.4% of his passes for 862 yards with nine touchdowns and zero interceptions, and week 4 was his second four-touchdown performance in 2024 after failing to reach that mark even once last season. 

After transferring from Ole Miss in 2023, Altmyer won the starting job for Bret Bielema’s team but didn’t make much of a case to hold onto it. 

The Mississippi native completed 64.6% of his passes in 2023 for 1,877 yards with 13 touchdowns and 10 interceptions and was sacked 34 times with a pressure-to-sack ratio of 26.4% which ranked 163rd out of 178 eligible FBS quarterbacks. Altmyer also only completed 14 of his 31 attempts over 20 yards downfield. So, in summation, he was a turnover-prone quarterback who struggled under pressure and didn’t create nearly enough explosive plays to justify the negatives. 

He was the perfect type of quarterback for former Penn State defensive coordinator Manny Diaz to attack with his relentless pass rush and aggressive secondary, however, Diaz’s replacement, Tom Allen will have a much different task. So far through four games this season, Altmyer has yet to throw an interception, with a 19.0% pressure-to-sack ratio, and he is 8/14 on deep shots for 240 yards and four touchdowns. He’s gone from averaging 5.78 yards per drop back to 6.77, simultaneously limiting his negative plays and increasing explosives. 

That improvement has come while Altmyer has increased his time to throw and decreased the number of dropbacks that last under 2.50 seconds from 50.6% to 44.7%. That sounds counterintuitive until you consider the improvement that Illinois has made along the offensive line. 

Last season, Altmyer was pressured on 38.5% of his dropbacks which has dropped to 34.1% in 2024, but more crucially, his time to sack of 3.43 seconds, which ranked 206th out of all FCS/FBS quarterbacks in the country last season, is now up to 4.31, 42nd best among the same sample. 

Illinois improved the situation around Luke Altmyer this offseason, adding right tackle Melvin Priestly, who has allowed just four pressures and no sacks in 131 pass-blocking snaps, from Grambling State, and wide receiver Zakhari Franklin, who leads the team with 21 catches, from Ole Miss. Now, Bielema’s veteran quarterback is blossoming because of it, so Penn State fans should not expect to face the same player who turned the ball over four times a year ago.