The Garrett Nussmeier hype is starting again, and it is already reaching an unjustified level heading into the 2025 college football season
The hype around LSU quarterback Garrett Nussmeier has been an interesting thing to track over the last several months. After a pretty strong start to the 2024 season, there were several prominent figures that spoke his praises loudly and were even hyping him up as potentially a top signal caller in the 2025 NFL Draft […]
The hype around LSU quarterback Garrett Nussmeier has been an interesting thing to track over the last several months. After a pretty strong start to the 2024 season, there were several prominent figures that spoke his praises loudly and were even hyping him up as potentially a top signal caller in the 2025 NFL Draft class.
Then Nussmeier hit a three-game losing skid against Texas A&M, Alabama, and Florida where his issues with pocket management and turnovers reared its ugly head. After that stretch, you heard LSU fans from all over start calling for a quarterback change. Nussmeier’s draft hype also disappeared, and he opted to return to Baton Rouge for his final season.
Nussmeier did have a couple of nice games to end the year, but it has been interesting to see the offseason hype surrounding a quarterback that a fanbase was so adamant about being benched not so long ago. Radio host Matt Moscona is leading that hype train, making a claim that there may not be a quarterback he’d rather have than Nussmeier for the 2025 college football season.
In the segment, Moscona compared Nussmeier to several quarterbacks. Some of his takes were more than fair, while others lacked a bit of substance. There was a little too much bias injected into his overall argument.
The first quarterback Moscona mentioned was Clemson star Cade Klubnik, who he admitted was an intriguing conversion. “Klubnik would be interesting only because he kept the turnovers down last season,” he said. “But that was a three loss Clemson team. Nuss threw for more yards. Nuss also had to do more in that offense.”
That last part of the argument was pretty interesting considering that Nussmeier led LSU to four losses last season. He literally had as many losses as Klubnik did all season in a four-game stretch. So Klubnik had better all around numbers, led his team to a better record, and a playoff appearance? The argument seems a bit weak.
Perhaps Moscona’s biggest doozy of an argument was when he discussed Penn State signal caller Drew Allar. “If you watched him in the playoff game against Notre Dame, I just don't know if I believe that Drew Allar is capable of beating good teams with his arm,” Moscona explained. “Garrett Nussmeier can do it. We saw him do it against Ole Miss.”
Using an Ole Miss game where Nussmeier completed 22 of 51 passes, and two interceptions probably isn’t the best example of quarterback play. Nussmeier made a couple of clutch plays down the stretch, but if he had even an average game, LSU probably wins relatively easily.
The rest of Moscona’s arguments are fine. There are absolutely some quarterbacks who just don’t have a sample size big enough to have a great claim as the top college quarterback returning.
"I don’t think I would take Sam Leavitt just because of the competition,” he said. “Carson Beck is coming off of an injury. Arch (Manning) (Texas) has a super high ceiling but 95 career attempts. DJ Lagway (Florida), again, a young guy. Diego Pavia (Vanderbilt), total gamer, but limited. Nico (Iamaleava), tons of arm ability, but that Tennessee offense really struggled at times last season, especially in the first half of ball games. Kevin Jennings is a super interesting player, dynamic runner and thrower, but again playing at SMU opposed to playing in the SEC or Big Ten. It just feels like a different level.”
Nussmeier is a solid quarterback, but the best returning signal caller in college football? The arguments are pretty weak to justify that. Let’s hope he doesn’t get off to a slow start, or else the LSU fans are going to yell Michael Van Buren.
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