The 2026 NFL draft begins on Thursday, April 23, which means there’s precious little time left to make sense of so many things that require clarity. In an attempt to bring more signal to the noise, Athlon Sports’ Doug Farrar is doing a series of articles designed to simply explain this draft’s most polarizing subjects.
In this installment, we turn our attention to LSU quarterback Garrett Nussmeier, who may well have been a healthy 2025 season away from first-round grades from the NFL. It’s time to look back to the potential Nussmeier showed when he could, and project what kind of professional quarterback he can be with a clean bill of health.
Related: Draft 101: Can Alabama’s Ty Simpson Be an NFL Franchise Quarterback?
In his 2024 season, LSU quarterback Garrett Nussmeier looked for all the world like a first-round prospect. The 6-foot-2, 200-pound Nussmeier completed 336 of 525 passes for 4,043 yards, 29 touchdowns, 12 interceptions, and a passer rating of 96.4 in his first year as a starter for the Tigers after three seasons as a backup. In 2024, Nussmeier also ran the ball 25 times for 93 yards and three touchdowns.
After all of that, Nussmeier’s 2025 season was supposed to be more of a coronation and confirmation of that first-round status than anything else. But a funny thing happened on the way to that certainty. In LSU’s fall camp, Nussmeier suffered an abdominal/oblique injury that affected his core, and delivered “stabbing pain” whenever he threw the ball. Nussmeier played through Week 11 against Alabama before he was shut down for the rest of the season, and that ended his college career. He did strap the pads back on for Senior Bowl practice, and for the game itself.
Nussmeier further explained the injuries, and how he’s doing now, during his media session at the scouting combine in late February.
“I think it was pretty evident,” he said of the effects of the injuries. “I really wasn’t able to throw the football. I had a stabbing pain in my ab every time I went to throw the ball. And we weren’t able to figure out exactly what it was. It was a frustrating deal.
“It wasn’t LSU’s fault. It wasn’t the doctor’s fault. They did a great job of taking care of me [along with] the trainers there. It was just a rare deal. It was just a thing that we really didn’t figure out what it was until about two months ago. I had about nine days to prepare for the Senior Bowl and try to get back right for that.
“And so, I’ve made a lot of progress over the last month. Feeling much more like myself, which has been exciting. Learning how to retrain myself, get rid of the bad habits that I created, and just be able to throw the football like I know I can.”
Throwing the football like he knows he can would be a very good thing.
You can see the effects of Garrett Nussmeier's ab/oblique/torso injury on 2025 when you watch his 2024 season. In 2024, he was a chaos/big-play generator at an absolutely stupid level. 2025 saw him working around it — reducing his motion and big play ability.
This is 2024. pic.twitter.com/npqLGAjd0h— Doug Farrar ✍ (@NFL_DougFarrar) March 29, 2026
In 2025, Nussmeier completed 194 of 288 passes for 1,922 yards, 12 touchdowns, five interceptions, and a passer rating of 92.7. His completion rate actually went up from 64.0% to 67.4% in 2025, but his yards per attempt dropped a full yard from 7.7 to 6.7, and he was far less prolific as a deep passer. In 2024, Nussmeier completed 31 of 86 passes of 20 or more air yards for 982 yards, nine touchdowns, two interceptions, and a passer rating of 104.9. In 2025 on those deep passes, Nussmeier completed just nine of 30 for 289 yards, two touchdowns, one interception, and a passer rating of 75.6.
Garrett Nussmeier at the combine about his 2025 season: "Not being able to use your core as a quarterback is pretty tough."
Well, this is what that can look like. pic.twitter.com/jPLYDVz9Ob— Doug Farrar ✍ (@NFL_DougFarrar) March 31, 2026
Moreover, Nussmeier was far less comfortable when throwing outside the pocket, something that had become an alpha skill when he was healthy. In 2024, he completed 52 of 98 passes outside the pocket for 655 yards, two touchdowns, two interceptions, and a passer rating of 72.4. In 2025, he completed 22 of 38 passes outside the pocket for 244 yards, two touchdowns, one interception, and a passer rating of 83.7. So, while NUssmeier may have been more efficient overall in 2025, the injury sapped him of a lot of the things that had made his special – and it showed up on tape.
At his best, Nussmeier combines a legitimate NFL arm with plus velocity and location with good anticipation, and the ability to make plays outside of structure with intelligent improvisation and multiple arm angles. That Garrett Nussmeier fit the archetype of the quarterback NFL teams want these days with his balance of structure and anarchy. However, the 2025 version of Garrett Nussmeier looked far more like just another quarterback, as opposed to the quarterback he had become.
Now, the questions are whether Nussmeier has returned to full health, and what that means for the 2026 NFL draft. Because the 2024 version of Nussmeier would rest comfortably ahead of Alabama’s Ty Simpson as QB2 in this class, and not too far behind Indiana’s Fernando Mendoza at QB1. Nussmeier may not yet have Mendoza’s decision-making knack, but it’s not a liability in his case, and given his proven skill for making far more plays out of structure than Mendoza can, most coaches would take that deal.
And when asked at the combine about whether he favors coverage reads or pure progression reads, Nussmeier – the son of former NFL quarterback and longtime quarterback coach and offensive coordinator Doug Nussmeier – showed that he has it on the ball from a mental standpoint.
Above the neck, he appears to be an NFL guy already.
Related: Pure Progression Reads: What Are They, And Why Is Everybody Talking About Them?
“Yeah, I mean, there’s a lot of people who think that they’re gurus, right? And people on Twitter think they understand,” he said. “But the game changes, you know what I mean? It goes through phases.
“15 years ago, it was all under center. And then, the big shotgun phase went through. And now, you see teams getting back into 13 personnel under center, running the football, and doing different things. So the game is always changing.
“I think the correct answer to that is I think that there are hybrids in that area – plays with alerts that lead to a pure progression, or plays that might key a linebacker or a boundary safety, and then go through a progression from there. I think those are the best. Those are what I like the most, the more complex reads.
“But I think it’s different for every quarterback. And every quarterback has what they like. And I think that’s why you see so many different customizations to the starting quarterbacks in the NFL.”
Nussmeier was also asked about the negative tendencies he mentioned that he picked up in 2025.
“Yeah, well, just for one, not being able to use your core as a quarterback is pretty tough, and so I had created just many different habits, whether it was arm angles or things with my feet and trying to turn around my hips instead of my abs and things like that.
“So, just more of learning how to use my abdomen again as I’m throwing the ball.”
Seems like a good idea. Try throwing a football while someone’s punching you in the stomach. It’s generally better when they don’t.
Garrett Nussmeier has the potential to be an NFL starting quarterback. And at his best, he may be the second-best quarterback in this class. Which makes me wonder how NFL teams see him at this point in time.