LSU QB Garrett Nussmeier’s 2025 season was undoubtedly a bumpy ride. While injuries piled up, consistency was hard to find. Still, the setbacks haven’t dimmed his NFL outlook. Now headed to the 2026 Panini Senior Bowl, Nussmeier opened up about the factors that held him back this past season, offering clarity and a sense of redemption.

As he looks to reset the narrative and remind scouts why his upside remains real, the LSU QB admitted at a media conference ahead of the Senior Bowl just how much he battled an abdominal injury throughout the season while trying to push through it.

“Yeah, you know, obviously, it’s been a long process for me dealing with the injury, and so, it was kind of down to the wire-ish,” said Nussmeier. “You know, obviously, I had that re-injured towards the end of the season, and so, been working really hard to try and get back healthy. And so, you know, as soon as we realized that, hey, okay, I can go do this, it was a no-brainer.”

Although Nussmeier’s 2025 season never truly got off the ground, the LSU QB knows his ceiling. He already showed it in 2024. His honest admission about playing through injury gives NFL scouts a clearer context, one that keeps his draft stock alive despite the statistical dip from the year before.

In 2025, an abdominal injury suffered during fall camp lingered from August on, quietly sabotaging his year. He tried to gut it out. Then came the setbacks, again in late October, again in November. Eventually, his body tapped out, and he missed the final three regular-season games and the Texas Bowl, with Michael Van Buren stepping in under center.

More importantly, the timing couldn’t have been worse. Garrett Nussmeier entered the season as a preseason Heisman favorite and a projected first-round NFL pick. Some evaluators even whispered top-10 and QB1 upside. Instead, the injury flipped the script and derailed the momentum entirely.

It was a sharp contrast from 2024, when he thrived in his first year as LSU’s starter, led the Tigers to a 9–4 record, topped the SEC in completions, and capped the season with Texas Bowl MVP honors. While the talent never left, Nussmeier gets a clean reset now that he’s healthy and surrounded by NFL coaching in a controlled setting. The Senior Bowl offers a rare stage to remind scouts why his name once carried serious weight.

With the 2026 QB class wide open, momentum here matters more than ever. But the numbers show the slide. After ranking No. 12 nationally in PFSN’s QB Impact Metric in 2024, Nussmeier fell to No. 110 in 2025. Still, he sits as QB3 on the PFSN Consensus, buoyed by positional value and faith in his mental makeup.

If he sharpens that edge and stays healthy, the Senior Bowl could mark the start of a comeback story scouts didn’t expect. Most mocks peg him as a Day 2 talent, somewhere in Rounds 2–3, yet some analysts still whisper about a late first-round ceiling. ESPN’s Miller & Reid rank him as the No. 5 QB in the class.

Meanwhile, Nussmeier has a prime stage to shine and maybe rewrite where he goes in April. But even more intriguing, an NFL connection could ultimately define Garrett Nussmeier’s future at the next level.

Garrett Nussmeier’s NFL future takes a new direction

Mike McCarthy’s arrival in Pittsburgh signals a reset, as he has a clear mission to fix the offense and finally stabilize the QB position. With the Steelers holding 12 draft picks in 2026, the pressure is on to find a true franchise QB. That search puts LSU’s Garrett Nussmeier squarely on the radar.

Once viewed as a clean first-round talent, Nussmeier’s stock dipped after an uneven senior season. But the tools remain. While he’s not a finished product, scouts believe that in the right system, his football IQ and poise could translate quickly to Sundays, especially with a patient developer calling the shots.

If Nussmeier joins the Steelers, he could get a chance to grow under a coach known league-wide as a QB developer, thanks to years of molding Aaron Rodgers in Green Bay. Here’s where it gets interesting: McCarthy isn’t evaluating Nussmeier blindly.

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Garrett’s father, Doug Nussmeier, worked directly under McCarthy with the Cowboys from 2020 to 2022. That relationship gives McCarthy rare insight into Garrett’s work ethic and coachability. Now, in a draft where margins matter, that familiarity could be the edge. If McCarthy gets it right, this connection may not just shape Nussmeier’s NFL future, but it could define Pittsburgh’s next era.