From making Heisman buzz and being an early draft pick to becoming a complete disappointment, Garrett Nussmeier’s fate turned fast. This season has been throwing curveballs at him since the start, as he’s dealing with an abdominal strain, which has impacted his performance. Then, a lousy offensive line and rushing attack just made it worse. The final nail in the coffin, you may ask? He made a critical error against Alabama that didn’t just bench him but also drew visible disappointment from his interim head coach.

After getting benched against Texas A&M in their home loss, Garrett Nussmeier’s inconsistency once again pulled him out of the game. With 9:41 minutes remaining in the third quarter, Nussmeier made a rookie mistake on 3rd and goal. To avoid the three-man rush, he moved the wrong way and went straight to Bama’s Edge Yhonzae Pierre, who sacked him for a 14-yard loss. That rushing decision didn’t just end the drive for them but also showed his lack of decision-making.

Instead of throwing it to WRs, he tired of rushing the ball. That’s when Frank Wilson had to take the tough call of benching him for Michael Van Buren. Talking about his move after the game, he said, “Yeah, so as we discussed as a staff, we knew they there could be opportunities in the quarterback run game, and then at the back end, as they tried to bring closure to it, they would make it difficult to just sit in the pocket. And so we wanted to move them around and do some things. We thought that he gave us a chance to do those things.”