BATON ROUGE — The last time LSU had to replace a Heisman Trophy-winning quarterback was a perfect storm of awful.
In 2020, Myles Brennan succeeded 2019 Heisman-winning QB Joe Burrow, Brennan was done after four games, suffering a season-ending abdominal tear.
But even before that, the odds were stacked against him.
The COVID-19 pandemic that started in March wiped out spring practice and off-season workouts.
Combine that with just two returning offensive starters from the 15-0 2019 national championship team, and some bad new coaching hires on both sides of the ball by then-LSU head coach Ed Orgeron. It fast-tracked the Tigers from the penthouse to the outhouse.
LSU’s offense and quarterback room never recovered until Brian Kelly replaced the fired Orgeron in 2022 and eventually developed Arizona State transfer Jayden Daniels into last year’s Heisman Trophy.
This brings us to Garrett Nussmeier, who’s replacing Daniels as LSU’s starting quarterback.
The last time Nussmeier played a full season as a starter was in 2020 when he was a senior at Marcus (Flower Mound, Texas) High.
There’s a hint of trepidation about Nussmeier, a fourth-year junior who has played in 18 LSU games with a ReliaQuest Bowl MVP performance last January in his only college start. He hasn’t yet gone through the mental and physical grind of being QB1 weekly for an entire season in college football’s toughest conference.
He hasn’t had to pick up his battered and bruised body like a concussed Daniels did after the Alabama loss a year ago and respond the next Saturday with an SEC record 606 yards total offense and five TDs in a win over Florida.
As Brennan did with Burrow, who threw for 60 TDs and just 6 interceptions in his Heisman run, Nussmeier has an almost impossible act to follow in dual-threat QB Daniels, who had a 40/4 TD-to-interception ratio and ran for 1,134 yards and 10 TDs to capture the Heisman.
Nussmeier, who has displayed gunslinging tendencies as a backup QB, will probably throw more interceptions this season than Daniels.
It’s not that Nussmeier hasn’t matured. He understands perfectly what he’s supposed to do.
“You just stick to the process,” Nussmeier said. “You go play by play, do the right things, move the chains, move the chains, put the ball in the end zone.”
Sounds simple. But for someone exceedingly confident in his bazooka throwing arm, the temptation will always be there for Nussmeier to force a throw into crowded coverage.
And since Nussmeier is nowhere near the dual threat that Daniels repeatedly proved, from his 25-yard run on his first LSU snap vs. Florida State to his 15-yard TD pass on his last play as a Tiger vs. Texas A&M, defenses don’t have to devote a spy anymore on Tigers’ QBs.
That’s one more man in pass coverage than Nussmeier has to face.
But there are many overriding reasons why Nussmeier should be a vastly better successor to Daniels than the tough luck, injury-prone Brennan was to Burrow.
First, there’s the fact that Nussmeier is operating behind an offensive line that has four starters playing their third season together as a unit. Bookend tackles Will Campbell and Emery Jones Jr. are projected 2025 NFL draft top 20 picks. LSU has had just one offensive lineman – eventual Pro Football Hall of Famer Alan Faneca – ever taken in the first round.
In 2020, Brennan had just one returning starting offensive lineman – Austin Deculus – from the 15-0 2019 team.
Because the O-line is the undisputed strength of the 2024 Tigers, new offensive coordinator Joe Sloan (who served as LSU’s QB coach the last two seasons) is tweaking schemes to emphasize a running game featuring linemen pulling out and leading running backs on sweeps.
“Coach Sloan said we’re going to go from inside out on everything, so it starts with us up front,” Campbell said. “We’re showing more diversity in the run game, which should create big plays in the passing game.”
Unlike Brennan, who had three different passing game/quarterback coaches in his last three seasons, Nussmeier is in year three with Sloan. It’s a tight relationship filled with trust and honesty.
“I’ve been really proud of Garrett’s growth the last couple of years,” Sloan said. “He’s focused on his process, on the little things that allow big things to happen. He processes information quickly.”
Finally, unlike Brennan whose 17 appearances (behind Burrow in 2018-19 and Danny Etling in 2017) were strictly mop-up duty, Nussmeier has played meaningful minutes in some of his 18 appearances.
He replaced an injured Daniels for the entire second half in the 2022 SEC championship game vs. Georgia. His 294 passing yards are the most in a half in LSU history.
In LSU’s two bowl games (and wins) – one as a reserve and one as a starter – Nussmeier has completed 42 of 60 passes for 568 yards and 5 TDs.
“I’ve been blessed with the opportunity to step into some pretty tough situations,” Nussmeier said. “I think they’ve only made me better as a player.”
Finally, while former LSU starting QBs Max Johnson (14 starts in 2020-21) and TJ Finley (5 starts in 2020) are now at their third and fourth colleges respectively, Nussmeier has stayed true to the school he loves.
“God brought me to LSU for a reason,” Nussmeier said. “I did not feel it was my time to just pack up and leave. I felt like it was my duty to just keep my head down and trust in His timing.”
It worked for Matt Flynn, who sat as an LSU reserve for four years before leading LSU to the 2007 national title as the starting.
You got next, Nuss.
Contact Ron at ronhigginsmedia@gmail.com
