Garrett Nussmeier is a quarterback and 2026 NFL Draft prospect who played five seasons at LSU. A native of Lake Charles, Louisiana, Nussmeier was born into a football family, as his father Doug is a longtime NFL coach and current New Orleans Saints offensive coordinator, and he grew up moving 12 times across eight states and Canada before settling in Flower Mound, Texas for his college prep career. He enrolled at LSU as a four-star recruit in 2021, redshirting his true freshman season before gradually working into the rotation over the following two years while backing up Heisman Trophy winner Jayden Daniels. He broke out in 2024 as the Tigers' full-time starter, delivering the most prolific first-year starting season in program history with 4,052 passing yards and 29 touchdowns on a 64.2 percent completion rate, including fourth-quarter comeback wins over South Carolina and Ole Miss and a Texas Bowl MVP performance. He chose to return to LSU for a final season in 2025 but was hampered by a nagging abdominal injury throughout the year and was benched after nine games, throwing for 1,927 yards and 12 touchdowns before his season ended. He finished his LSU career as the program's third-highest yardage passer all time with 7,699 yards and earned MVP honors at the 2026 Senior Bowl in his final collegiate showcase.
Measured at approximately 6-1 and 205 pounds, Nussmeier brings a quick, compact release with genuine arm velocity that shows up on film as easy natural zip on throws over the middle of the field, where he has drawn some of the best accuracy grades in the draft class. The football intelligence he developed growing up around the game is evident in his pre-snap preparation and his ability to handle protection adjustments and work through progressions when his pocket is clean and he is operating in rhythm. The challenges for his evaluation center on a frame that raises durability questions given the injury history in his final two seasons, a gunslinger mentality that leads to too many turnover-worthy decisions when he believes he can force throws into occupied windows, and the significant regression from his 2024 production to his 2025 body of work that leaves some evaluators unsure which version of him represents the true baseline. Nussmeier projects as a Day 3 selection, most likely in the third through fifth round range, with the arm talent, football pedigree, and processing ability to develop into a reliable NFL starter if he can learn to manage the game with more discipline under professional coaching.
