Brian Kelly can say what he wants, but there’s no sign that Garrett Nussmeier will look right in 2025
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I wanted to come away from the Ole Miss game feeling good about watching the LSU offense.
Admittedly, part of that is because I picked LSU to win a national title this year. Another part of that was because I wanted to see the best version of Garrett Nussmeier on the heels of an underwhelming start, wherein the LSU offense was held to 23 points or less in 3 games vs. FBS competition. I wanted to be able to turn the page with the Nussmeier-led Tigers and chalk up the slow start to the elite defenses that LSU faced in the first 2 marquee defenses.
Instead, I got the same sinking feeling that I’ve had post-Clemson. That is, that Nussmeier isn’t right. It’s not just that he’s not playing at a high enough level for this team to live up to championship expectations. It’s that he doesn’t look like a guy who is healthy.
And so when Brian Kelly was questioned about Nussmeier’s health during the SEC Teleconference on Wednesday, well, let’s just say Kelly got just a touch defensive.
“That’s misinformation. Not based on any facts. It’s silly that it’s out there,” Kelly said (H/T Tiger Droppings). “Early on, he had an ab strain, not a core injury. And it’s been slow to heal. He’s on the backside of that, and he’s getting better.”
Kelly has every right to say the face of his program isn’t having surgery. But the “he’s getting better” part is where I’ll choose to not listen to him.
We have eyeballs. We can all see Nussmeier struggling, and with all due respect to the job that Pete Golding did with a new-look Ole Miss defense, it’s also the same unit that surrounded more points to Zach Calzada-led Kentucky than Nussmeier. We can poke holes in the transitive property. We can’t defend who LSU has been on offense in 2025.
And yes, I know that starting/only trusted tailback Caden Durham was out against Ole Miss. It didn’t help that Aaron Anderson went down in the first half, either. Those were 2 key losses.
Nothing about Nussmeier’s performance suggests that he’s trending in the right direction from a health standpoint
You can even see that on the good plays.
Go back to the biggest passing play of the day that Nussmeier had in Oxford. It’s an accurate touch throw to Zavion Thomas for 50 yards. Ask yourself this, though. Did Nussmeier step into this throw with a clean pocket?
If that was the type of pass that Nussmeier threw regularly in 2024, fine. We could look at that and understand that he’s just got a guy who steps into throws and cuts them loose with confidence. But because we have eyeballs and we’ve seen Nussmeier throughout his time at LSU, we know that he’s never been lacking arm strength or confidence.
Go back to a throw like this and tell me that Nussmeier looks like he’s capable of ripping it like this on any upcoming Saturday in 2025.
I know, I know. That’s a spring game. A quarterback looking relaxed in that setting doesn’t mean much.
Let’s instead go back to the end of last year. Watch how Nussmeier perfectly layered this ball to Aaron Anderson:
Again, tell me you would bet on seeing Nussmeier make a throw like that coming off the bye against South Carolina. I wouldn’t, especially with preseason All-American Dylan Stewart speeding up Nussmeier off the edge.
That can still happen, even if South Carolina DC Clayton White sees what was pointed out on the Ole Miss broadcast. That is, you can simply drop 8 into coverage and rush 3 against Nussmeier. You can definitely have success doing that if 1 of those 3 guys is Stewart.
Nussmeier is No. 12 in the SEC with 5.3 yards/attempt when under pressure, and in those spots, his average depth of target is just 8.9 yards/attempt (No. 15 in SEC) with 57.7% adjusted completion percentage (No. 11 in SEC). If you can scramble out of those spots, that’s fine. This version of Nussmeier can’t do that, which is why he scrambled just once in the first 5 games.
Sure, Nussmeier wasn’t ever going to be a scrambler. But there was hope that with improved receiver weapons, he’d at least be able to attack downfield. After all, he’s a gunslinger. He’ll take chances.
Well, you can’t take chances if the arm strength isn’t there.
Again, though. It’s not just the interception. Sometimes, you can live with that.
But for a guy who some thought could be the No. 1 overall pick in the NFL Draft, we’re not seeing him make high-level throws outside the numbers. On passes at least 10 yards downfield that are outside the numbers, Nussmeier is just 7-for-23 for 90 yards this season. Compare that to last year when he was 47-for-118 for 1,042 yards (via PFF). That’s night and day. Whether that’s because of the “ab strain” or just because LSU has been conservative, it’s a monumental year-to-year difference.
Defenses can see that. Shoot, we all can see that, too.
That’s a troubling thought for an LSU offense that’ll face plenty of elite defensive minds on the remainder of that schedule. Something tells me that Mike Elko and Brent Venables will be aware of that. Guys like Clark Lea and Kane Wommack had success against the best version of Nussmeier, much less whatever this is.
It’s clearly different. If Nussmeier will indeed continue to play through whatever it is that’s ailing him, one can’t help but wonder just how limited the LSU offense will be. My Saturday Down South Podcast co-host, Will Ogburn, compared it to what Texas looked like with Quinn Ewers late last season. We found out during the pre-draft process that Ewers played with a torn oblique. As a result, Ewers didn’t look like the guy who entered the season as a Heisman hopeful for a national championship contender. It’s a credit to Steve Sarkisian that Texas still played a down-to-the-wire semifinal game against Ohio State.
Perhaps it’s too early to put a ceiling on LSU. It’s not, however, too early to be concerned about Nussmeier. That solidified itself on Saturday in Oxford.
No misinformation there.
Connor O'Gara is the senior national columnist for Saturday Down South. He's a member of the Football Writers Association of America. After spending his entire life living in B1G country, he moved to the South in 2015.
