By GLENN GUILBEAU, Tiger Rag Editor
LSU fifth-year senior quarterback Garrett Nussmeier can virtually make up for his lost season of 2025 because of a painful abdomen tear injury with one week of practice and/or one game during Senior Bowl week in Mobile, Alabama, from Jan. 26-31.
Nussmeier has agreed to practice and play in the premier NFL pre-draft game, the Senior Bowl announced on Monday. Virtually every NFL general manager, head coach and personnel directors will descend on Mobile.
After injuring his abdomen last August, Nussmeier dealt with the injury for most of his season through nine games, and it showed before he basically opted out, understandably, of the Tigers’ final three regular season games and third-tier Texas Bowl.
In 2024, Nussmeier shot up the NFL draft boards to a high first round pick and potentially the first quarterback to go before a late-season swoon dropped him. But had he declared for the 2025 NFL Draft, he likely would have still been a first round choice. As his 2025 season floundered along with his passes, Nussmeier now finds himself likely falling into the second round.
He is currently the No. 7 quarterback on Mel Kiper’s ESPN list. With impressive showings at the Senior owl and LSU’s Pro Day in the spring, and the NFL Combine in February, if invited, he could rise, kdepending where his abdomen injury is.
LSU safety AJ Haulcy, wide receiver Barion Brown and defensive end Jack Pyburn were previous invitees to the Senior Bowl from the Tigers’ 2025 team.
In 13 games in 2024, Nussmeier completed 337 of 525 passes (64.2 percent) for 4,052 yards (5th in the nation) and 29 touchdowns (10th nationally) with 12 interceptions when healthy and with an offensive line that put four members into the 2025 NFL Draft. His 311.7 yards passing a game for a team that finished 107th in the nation in rushing with 116.4 yards a game.
In nine games in 2025, Nussmeier completed 194 of 288 passes (67.4 percent) for 1,927 yards and 12 touchdowns with five interceptions for a 133.8 efficiency rating. He averaged 214.1 passing yards a game with an even worse running game than the previous season – 124th nationally with 104 yards a game.
“I can’t un-see what I saw in 2024,” new Senior Bowl executive director Drew Fabianich told Tiger Rag on Monday. “So there has to be the why.”
Fabianich was a Dallas Cowboys national scout for 14 years while with Dallas from 2003 through 2021. He is also a former general manager at Auburn (2022-23) and at West Virginia (2023-24) and was the defensive coordinator at Louisiana-Monroe from 1997-2000.
“There has to be an explanation,” Fabianich said. “That difference in the two seasons doesn’t just happen over night.”
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