Entering the 2025 college football season, LSU QB Garrett Nussmeier was tabbed as one of, if not the top quarterback in the 2026 draft class. He was coming off a 4,000-yard, 29-touchdown season and looked like a potential Heisman Trophy winner, but it all fell apart in fall camp.

Just weeks before the start of the season, there were some rumors that Nussmeier was battling through an injury, but no specifics were ever released and LSU Head Coach Brian Kelly repeatedly denied that Nussmeier was going through anything.

But at the Senior Bowl last month, Nussmeier revealed that he actually injured his abdomen on day two of fall camp.

Even after his Pro Day on Monday, he refused to give specifics, but he said he felt a stabbing pain in his abdomen, which prevented him from rotating and ultimately effected how he threw the football.

“I just felt a stabbing pain in my abdomen, and it was just a freak deal,” Nussmeier explained on Monday. “As I said before, I’m still not going to get into specifics of what the injury actually was, but it was a freak deal and an unfortunate thing.”

In 2025, Nussmeier started nine games where he threw for 1,927 yards, 12 touchdowns and five interceptions. He never looked like himself, repeatedly under throwing balls and almost refusing to throw the ball downfield.

Everyone suspected he had some sort of an injury, but Brian Kelly continued to deny there was anything wrong with his starting quarterback.

Once Kelly was fired after an agonizing 49-25 loss to Texas A&M, Nussmeier started one more game before he was benched in favor of Michael Van Buren. He did not play another snap in 2025, and immediately went into rehabbing his injury so he could be 100 percent for the NFL Draft process.

After his Pro Day, Nussmeier said it wasn’t the season he wanted, but he thinks it will all make him a better player in the end.

“Obviously, this last year didn’t go the way we wanted it to, and I’m sorry we couldn’t reach those expectations,” said Nussmeier. “As frustrating as it was for y’all, it was just as frustrating for me and the guys in this building. It was a tough year.

“There was a lot of adversity and things I had to go through. Ultimately, looking back on it, it was unfortunate, but it is going to make me a better player.”

Since his last game on November 8th, 2025, Nussmeier has been doing great. He was able to get fully healthy a little over a week before the Senior Bowl, and since then has won Senior Bowl MVP and had a stellar showing at his Pro Day, where he completed 69 of his 72 attempts and had some obvious zip on the ball, which he lacked last season due to his injury.

“It’s been a long process trying to get back, but I’m feeling great,” Nussmeier told the media after his Pro Day. “I feel like today I showed that, and in a sense, I showed who I am. I’m healthy and actually able to throw the ball.”

Nussmeier was dealt a crappy hand this season. First he gets injured in fall camp before the season even started, and then his coach lied to the media about his injury. Fans were turning against him for his poor play, but the whole time it’s because he was nowhere near 100 percent.

Nussmeier’s had plenty of questions to answer this offseason about why his play dropped off so significantly in 2025, but after his Senior Bowl and Pro Day performances, I think it’s clear to most teams that it was due to no fault of his own. He just physically couldn’t throw the ball due to his abdomen injury.

We’ll see where Nussmeier ends up in the draft, but if he can get back to how he played in 2024, a team with a high risk-reward tolerance could find themselves a starter steal on day two.