Kelly pushes back on sitting Garrett Nussmeier vs. Southeastern

LSU’s starting quarterback Garrett Nussmeier has been hampered with a torso injury the past month, potentially limiting his game through the first three contests of the season. The Tigers are 3-0 for the first time since 2019, but the offense has struggled and Nussmeier continues to search for consistency amidst some discomfort.

On Monday, Kelly said Nussmeier is getting healthy and on Wednesday’s SEC teleconference, he was asked about his quarterback again.

Wilson Alexander of The Advocate asked Brian Kelly about the possibility of resting Nussmeier against Southeastern, but LSU’s head coach remains persistent that Nussmeier is getting better and he’s been able to move more freely in recent practices.

“He needs to play. This week is an opportunity for him. He’s doing some things in practice he hasn’t done in the last month,” Kelly said. “Garrett being slowed in practice, it slowed up the development of the offense. We’re ramping up him up now.”

Nussmeier’s health has become the hot topic in LSU football for this week after it was revealed he sustained the upper-body injury during fall camp. He also had a tendonitis flare up in fall camp as well. Still, Kelly was optimistic on Monday that the worst is behind him and there’s hope that he’s back to 100 percent in the coming weeks.

“He’s been slowed a little bit with a torso injury and he’s fighting through it and getting better,” Kelly said. “He’s not going to be able to shut it down until the bye week. I’m not saying that has been any of his troubles. He’s a symptom that we’re taking some plays away from him.”

“We’ve limited him throughout the week. It’s an upper body injury that you want to be careful how may reps he’s getting throwing the football. He’s overcoming that, but we had to be careful with him in the first few weeks. He should be in a great place after the bye week. It happened in camp. It’s a product of a lot of throws. This is more of management throughout the week. I think he’s on the other side of it, but we had to be careful.”

LSU’s vertical passing attack has been limited and surprisingly quiet so far this year and Nussmeier’s upper body injury may have played a part in that. The primary concern for Kelly is that they are not practicing the deep shot plays as much as they want to during the week as they try to rest Nussmeier’s arm.

“We’re not working on it as much in practice so when you get your shots you want to take them, but you’re not working on it in practice,” Kelly said. “We’re starting to pick up the pace now.”

The hope is Nussmeier is good to go for LSU’s game against Ole Miss on the road next weekend as SEC play is officially here and the intensity is at an all-time high.