The Music City Bowl between Illinois and Tennessee will contain a quarterback the Volunteers acquired through the NCAA transfer portal and a quarterback the Vols reportedly pursued.
When Nico Iamaleava bolted Knoxville in April and left the Vols scrambling for experience at that position, one of their targets became Luke Altmyer of the Fighting Illini. The 6-foot-2, 215-pounder was familiar with the Southeastern Conference footprint, hailing from Starkville, Mississippi, and having spent the 2021-22 seasons under Lane Kiffin at Ole Miss.
“Honestly, I’ve never spoken about that conversation in any way, shape or form with Luke,” Illinois coach Bret Bielema said Sunday during a news conference after the Dec. 30 pairing in Nashville’s Nissan Stadium was announced. “One of the things I appreciate about Luke is that he’s got the same demeanor every day. To get one more game with him and it being an SEC opponent is pretty cool.”
In September, Chris Low of On3 Sports reported that Altmyer had received a $2 million offer in the offseason “from an SEC powerhouse,” but that it wasn’t enough to sway him from playing his final season in Champaign. Though the Vols were never mentioned in the article, the “SEC powerhouse” was widely speculated to be Tennessee given that other tradition-rich conference programs either had returning quarterbacks such as Garrett Nussmeier (LSU), Arch Manning (Texas), DJ Lagway (Florida) and Gunner Stockton (Georgia), or already had obtained quarterbacks via the portal, which was the case with John Mateer (Oklahoma) and Jackson Arnold (Auburn).
Bielema in the On3 Sports article said Altmyer, “never called me once, not a single time to talk about money,” with Altmyer having discussed his reasoning for staying with On3 Sports in June.