Garrett Nussmeier 2026 Prospect Profile

What to make of LSU's star QB

We move on to the third installment of my 2026 QB prospect profiles, and today we are looking at LSU Tiger, Garrett Nussmeier. He was a confounding watch who seemed to struggle against top competition, but showed many traits desired from top prospects. Though I am not exactly sure if he excels in any area of the game.

Background

Garrett Nussmeier is famously the son of Doug and Christi Nussmeier (née Hebert). Doug was a former College QB at Idaho, and went on to play five years in the NFL. He has now been in coaching positions throughout football for 25 years and is now the Offensive Coordinator for the New Orleans Saints. Christi was also a cheerleader for the Saints. It goes without saying, then, that Nussmeier has an incredible athletic pedigree. Even in high school, it showed as he was the 11th QB, and 88th overall prospect in the 2021 high school class. He committed to play for Ed Orgeron and the LSU Tigers in May of 2020. He stayed true to the program through the transition of Ed O to Brian Kelly and even sat behind Jayden Daniels longer than a QB with his talent would have been expected to in today’s NIL era. 2024 was Nussmeier’s first year as a starter.

Physical Attributes

Nussmeier is a slightly undersized QB. His height is fine at 6’2” and never really presented any challenges, but his weight of only 200 lbs is somewhat concerning. Also, by next year’s draft, he will be 24 years old as a 5th-year senior. He has a strong arm capable of making every throw on the field, although incredibly inconsistent, missing receivers short and long. His athleticism is fine, enough to run away from slower defenders, but it is not something a defense must concern itself with. Least of all because it usually looks like he would rather wait behind the line of scrimmage for an hour than take five open yards in front of him.

Data and Tape Analysis

If you are unfamiliar with my QB radar charts, you can find more information here.

Judging a QB who so obviously had a good offensive line in front of him and such a wealth of receiving talent to throw to is always difficult. It always makes a QB look better than they are and can help hide a lot of sins. Look at Nussmeier’s pressure-to-sack rate above. I am not exactly sure how PFF counts pressures, but I did not see too many, and I cannot believe that his pressure-to-sack rate is that low. His pocket presence under pressure could be described as cool, but it came off as almost lackadaisical to me. Not that he was so calm, he didn’t sense it was there, but that he was not worried it would be there and so when it was, he was often left trying to save a play he could have made more with if he had made a quicker decision to get out of the pocket. When he decides to leave the pocket, he almost always does this long spin move a la Caleb Williams, but with about half the speed and decisiveness. Add to that his complete and utter lack of desire to scramble most of the time, and defenses can quickly adjust to a broken play.

Before I go back to how Nussmeier benefited from where he played, I have to point out some of the downsides as well. LSU threw so many screens. So, so many screens. The second most popular play to screens seemed to be Nussmeier's play-action boot to the right, where he could find a receiver anywhere from the line of scrimmage to ten yards downfield. The number of those plays would hurt anyone’s average depth of target. Though to go back, Nussmeier did not do himself any favors in that department. He works through his progressions well, but a lot of the time, he moves on a touch too quickly. This led to a truly insane number of check downs, which are not bad plays within themselves, but he is too often looking for his safety blanket. This approach is the main reason his turnover-worthy play rate is low. Add to that elusive RBs and WRs, and now it makes sense that his ADOT is low, but his yards per attempt are so high—the benefit of playing for LSU.

Now, onto my biggest gripe with Nussmeier, his inconsistency. Let’s start with the accuracy percent below the 50th percentile. With a higher completion percentage, it’s easy to tell that his incredible skill players bailed him out of some very poor throws. And there were so many poor throws. At times it looks like he is getting ahead of himself while in the throwing motion, others he is playing way too on his toes, and others still everything seems right until he uncorks a weird arm angle and leaves the ball short. Throws that died in the dirt before ten yards, 50 yarders overthrown by 5. Then, you will ever see one of the best throws down the sideline to where only his receiver could catch it. Over the middle, he is money, but can sometimes overestimate his ability to get a ball into the tight window needed. Against South Carolina, he can stay cool on the road and pull off a comeback against an excellent team, and does it again against Ole Miss at home, but falls apart against A&M and Alabama.

Grade and Outlook

Nussmeier is highly regarded as a draft prospect. Some analysts I greatly respect even talk about him as their top prospect. I watched every throw of his this past season and looked at the data to see that I had to be missing something. I don’t know if I am. Without taking some major developmental leaps, Nussmeier is a good college QB who will not be a quality NFL starter. The number one thing he needs to improve on is his consistency. Footwork, ball placement, and decision-making all need work in that arena. Do not bet against LSU’s track record of turning QBs with seasons like Nussmeier just had around, but I am not sure things will happen in threes here.

Grade: 5.8 / 10