Garrett Nussmeier injury update: Brian Kelly offers encouraging news on lingering issue

LSU QB Garrett Nussmeier has been dealing with an injury to his torso for the duration of this season. But, coming out of this weekend’s win, Brian Kelly thinks he may finally have it heading behind him.

During his press conference on Monday, Kelly agreed about the look of Nussmeier’s throws during the 20-10 win over South Carolina on Saturday night. He felt that, coming out of the bye week, their quarterback is as healthy as he’s been, and is even more so with no lingering issue with it coming out of the victory against the Gamecocks.

“You know, all of those things are part of it, but the bottom line is he was healthy,” said Kelly, in relation to the play of their offensive line as well. “On Thursday, I mentioned to you that we have the ball that has the GPS in it, and his numbers were up from any other time during the week.”

“His ab injury is on the right side of it where he feels good, and he didn’t feel any pain on Sunday coming in. So, that’s a really, really good sign for us moving forward,” Kelly said.

In the 10-point win coming off the bye, Nussmeier was 20-33 (60.6%) for 254 yards and two touchdowns, but also two more interceptions. It was the second-most passing yardage and touchdowns that he’s had in a game this season, while also being the most picks he’s thrown still too. That said, as worded in the question asked to Kelly, there was “a little bit more zip” on the 33 attempts he made, which had been part of the issue in how this specific injury had been limiting him since he picked it up in fall camp.

It’s also of note that Kelly revealed today that Nussmeier had a slight, medial ankle sprain in this game as well. They believe he will be fine with that coming out of this game, but it’s worth mentioning so long as his health remains in question or consideration.

After a week off, which was much-needed with this kind of injury apparently, Nussmeier looked a lot better with the throws he made in the win on Saturday. Kelly agreed this morning, with the Tigers’ quarterback hoping to be past this as they get into the back half of their season.

“He plays with a swagger, and he’s better with a swagger, right. Don’t know that he had that the previous weeks, thought he was a little robotic and we said, listen, you need to be Garrett Nussmeier, and he was. Unfortunately, some of that comes with some mistake…But I like the version of Garrett Nussmeier we saw. He was a lot more confident. He was a lot more active in the pocket…That’s the version we want.”