By GLENN GUILBEAU, Tiger Rag Editor
MOBILE, Alabama – LSU quarterback Garrett Nussmeier has entered the “Medical Transfer Portal,” one might say, after playing the 2025 season in pain from what LSU doctors – he believes – incorrectly told him was an abdomen injury.
Through three days of practices for Saturday’s Senior Bowl (1:30 p.m., NFL Network) here, Nussmeier looked like a new man, throwing with newfound “zip” and “NFL velocity,” according to ESPN’s coverage Thursday of the American team’s practice at Hancock Whitney Stadium.
During Tuesday’s opening practice, Nussmeier was listed under “QB Ball Metric Leaders” on the large stadium scoreboard as having the “longest air distance pass” at 51.5 yards and the “fastest initial air speed” at 74.9 miles per hour.
Garrett Nussmeier’s day 1 ball metrics.
— 104.5 ESPN (@1045espn) January 28, 2026
Leads all QBs in longest air distance pass and fastest initial air speed 🏈 pic.twitter.com/roRZEd96xG
As the NFL Draft approaches on April 23-25 in Pittsburgh, those numbers represent a startling difference from the Nussmeier who played for the Tigers in 2025, often fluttering wounded-duck passes, underthrowing receivers, missing targets and displaying textbook bad mechanics because of what team doctors said was an abdomen/torso injury.
In nine games, he still completed 194 of 288 passes for 67.4 percent and 1,927 yards with 12 touchdowns and five interceptions for a 133.8 efficiency rating. He threw for only 214 yards a game, though, which was a far cry from his numbers in 2024 when healthy.
In 13 games the previous season, he completed 337 of 525 passes (64 percent) for an average 142.7 efficiency rating that was 42nd in the country, mainly because of 12 interceptions. But his 4,052 passing yards was No. 5 in the nation, his 311.7 yards a game was sixth, and his 29 TDs were 10th.
Nussmeier was seen as a high first round pick had he entered the NFL Draft as a junior in 2025. As he entered 2026 Senior Bowl week, though, he was seen as a third round pick at best and a fifth round selection at worst.
At least, now, though, he is healthy and has been throwing tight and long spirals all week with accuracy.
“We found out what it actually was a month ago,” Nussmeier told Tiger Rag Thursday night after the American team’s practice at Hancock Whitney. “It wasn’t what we thought it was throughout the entire season. And so, we’re making new progress there, and that’s why.”
LSU QB Garrett Nussmeier only found out about a month ago “for the first time”what his injury was.https://t.co/nxbNt6TUsZ
— Glenn Guilbeau (@SportBeatTweet) January 28, 2026
Nussmeier, who has been training at 3DQB in Huntington Beach, California, has been treated by a new team of doctors since the end of LSU’s 2025 season. He did not play in the Tigers’ last three games after aggravating his injury on Tuesday, Nov. 11, before the Arkansas game on Nov. 15.
“We got the correct diagnosis finally about two months ago, so,” Nussmeier said.
Asked what that diagnosis was and if it was still abdomen related, he said, “I’m not going to get into specifics. So, I appreciate it.”
Specifics, though, tend to be critical in discussing injuries. And Nussmeier has been inconsistent in his comments at times about the injury in previous interviews this week at the Senior Bowl.
While describing the aggravation of his injury during the week of the Arkansas game early this week, he said, “That Tuesday (Nov. 11) in practice, I tried to rip a throw, and reinjured my ab. At the time, we still thought it was a core injury. And so, we never really knocked it out.”
In two sentences above, he said he reinjured his ab, but mentioned the core injury as incorrect. The abdomen is part of the core or torso, which includes the lower back. So, it is the abdomen or not? Is it the core or not? Is it the torso or not? Nussmeier has not made that clear.
Nussmeier’s father Doug Nussmeier, the Saints’ offensive coordinator and a former NFL quarterback who played in the 1994 Senior Bowl, also spoke to Tiger Rag Thursday after practice.
Asked if his son’s injury is torso/core related, he said, “Yes.”
Asked if his son received a “mistaken diagnosis” originally by LSU doctors, the elder Nussmeier said, “I wouldn’t say that. Some things you’ve got to work through different steps before you get to what you’re dealing with, and unfortunately it took a long time. You’ve got to go through the process, find out what’s wrong and the rehabilitation.”
Asked if LSU’s doctors may have treated a symptom instead of the root cause, he said, “I’ll leave that up to the doctors.”
LSU team doctor Stephen Etheredge did not return a call from Tiger Rag to his office for comment on Friday morning.
LSU doctors have previously been accused of misdiagnosis. Etheredge, other LSU doctors and former football coach Brian Kelly were named in a lawsuit in 2024 by former LSU player Greg Brooks Jr.
Garrett Nussmeier has not been critical of Kelly.
“I love coach Kelly. I have a lot of respect for him,” he said this week. “Obviously, things didn’t work out. I don’t think that speaks directly to who coach Kelly is. I believe he’s a very good football coach. I’m looking forward to whatever situation that he takes on next and definitely rooting for him.”
Nussmeier said earlier in the week that his new team of doctors did consider surgery.
“Yes, there were a lot of things that went into it,” he said. “Ultimately, right now at this point, we don’t believe I’m going to need surgery. So, we had other plans, and hopefully we knocked it out.”
It sure looked like it here this week. Or maybe his abdomen, or whatever it is in the torso, healed by him resting. He has looked much better the last three days throwing the ball.
On his last pass Thursday, Nussmeier quickly stepped up in the pocket, sprinted to his right a few yards and threw hard across his body to the left, completing a 15-yard bullet to the middle of the field.
“I think his health is starting to come back around,” his dad said. “It’s been a challenge to get there. But that’s kind of been the year as it was. I think he’s getting close to being 100 percent.”
“Yeah, starting to feel better,” he said. “I hadn’t played football in three months. Shaking the rust off a little bit.”
And re-learning his mechanics.
“I’ve been trying to just re-train from the ground up,” he said earlier this week. “I had built so many bad habits to try and get the ball out my hand because of the injury that it was a struggle at times. Just going back through and being able to actually use my body the right way and being able to finish throws, rotate through the football – that’s something that I’ve been focusing on.”
Nussmeier also made it clear that he did not “opt out” of the final three games of the regular season and the bowl game without an injury consideration. Early this week, he explained his re-injury of Nov. 11.
“I was throwing a front-side shallow,” he said. “That’s an 8-yard throw. Immediately after I threw it, I bent over in pain. At that point, I knew, like, ‘If I can’t throw a front-side shallow, I’m not effective. I can’t help my team win.’ From there, it wasn’t really a decision I was able to make to not play. It was kind of forced upon me. That was in practice. Yes sir. We tried week to week to try and get me to be able to play. It got to a point where I decided, ‘Hey, I can’t do this.’”
And then the Senior Bowl gave him a chance to show he is healthy.
“He’s had a great week,” Senior Bowl director Drew Fabianich told Tiger Rag Thursday.
“He has the most to gain,” Fabianich told Jacob Hester and Matt Flynn this week on 104.5 FM’s “Off The Bench” show. “I can’t unsee what I saw from him in 2024. There was no way I was not going to invite him to this game. Because LSU didn’t protect well last season. He was hurt. The receivers – half of them didn’t produce like they were supposed to. They couldn’t run the ball. I mean, there were so many things that went against him. I think he could get back in the first round. The traits are still there. The production from 2024 is still there. If you watch enough tape, you know.”
And Nussmeier is expected to be invited to the NFL Scouting Combine in Indianapolis Feb. 23 through March 2 in Indianapolis.
“That would be my assumption,” Doug Nussmeier said.
Injury questions and inconsistencies and agent and player spin tend to be cleared up in detail at the Combine – publicly or not. Players spend a lot of time with doctors there.
In the meantime on Saturday, Nussmeier can show how much he has improved on national NFL Network television.
“As I said before, I’m not out here trying to prove anything,” he said. “Just out here looking for the opportunity to prove that.”
And he caught himself in an inconsistency.
“Well, I guess I am out here trying to prove a little bit,” he said. “But not trying to make a statement or anything like that. Just show that I belong at the next level, and me at my best self is good enough. Yes sir. Thank you.”
Could Nussmeier return to a first round projection? He has time.
“I don’t know,” said Doug Nussmeier, a fourth round pick by the Saints from Idaho in 1994 who was in the NFL for seven seasons. “I think every team is going to have a different opinion. It only takes one to pick him high. As they say, it’s like going to Baskin-Robbins. It only takes one flavor. The biggest thing is how blessed he is to have the opportunity to come here and play with the best players in the country. I mean, what an honor to be selected. It’s also great to see him back on the field again.”
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