The LSU Football team enters the 2025 season with National Championship goals and College Football Playoff expectations. Part of the expectations is all of the work LSU did to build a contender via the transfer portal adding elite talent across the board. While LSU adds a ton of talent, the Tigers have cornerstone pieces coming back for the 2025 season in Whit Weeks, Aaron Anderson, Caden Durham, and Garrett Nussmeier.
After waiting his turn for years, Garrett Nussmeier came in and impressed in his first season as a starter passing for 4,052 yards and 29 touchdowns while throwing 12 interceptions. The Tigers simply needed Nussmeier to carry the offense to have a chance in any game and for the most part Nussmeier brought it every week.
Coming into the season, Garrett Nussmeier is seen as a Heisman frontrunner and one of the best quarterbacks in college football. 24/7 Sports analyst Bud Elliott ranked the 10 best returning quarterbacks in College Football and ranked Nussmeier 2nd trailing only DJ Lagway.
While being the 2nd best quarterback in College Football is an incredible honor, is the ranking too low for Garrett Nussmeier? DJ Lagway has shown a ton of promise but, like Garrett Nussmeier, they both just wrapped up their first seasons as the starter.
While Nussmeier passed for 4,052 yards and 29 touchdowns with 12 interceptions in 525 attempts, Lagway passed for 1,915 yards and 12 touchdowns with 9 interceptions in just 192 attempts. Lagway has shown promise at times but, he still threw 9 interceptions in less than 200 attempts and has only shown the promise in a small sample size.
Garrett Nussmeier had to be LSU's offense as the Tigers had no rushing attack and the opponents always knew that was the case. The LSU receiving core wasn't to standard in 2024 and in 2025, Nussmeier will have Chris Hilton Jr, Barion Brown, Nic Anderson, and Destyn Hill who were added via the transfer portal or in the case of Chris Hilton Jr he missed most of the season with injuries.
The 2025 season will see Garrett Nussmeier take a massive leap like the two starters at LSU have before him now that he has a full season under his belt. While DJ Lagway can take the same jump, Garrett Nussmeier is going to have the weapons and the experience to prove he's the best quarterback in the Country.