Las Vegas – Garrett Nussmeier is certainly a sentimental favorite among LSU fans. Is a transfer portal era, a quarterback waiting four years for his opportunity to start is an outlier.
Add former national champion signal caller Matt Mauck to the long list of Nuss fans.
“I haven’t been rooting for a player more than him in a long time,” Mauck said on “After Further Review” with Matt Moscona. “I always love every LSU quarterback that’s there, but what he’s done for LSU—he could have gone to any school he wanted to and transferred, but he loved LSU, what LSU football was about and stuck with it. There hasn’t been someone I’ve been rooting for more.”
Mack signed a professional baseball contract out of high school after signing to play football for Nick Saban at Michigan State. When his baseball career ended, Mauck joined Saban at LSU in 2000 and ended up leading LSU to the 2003 BCS national championship.
Mauck noted the transition might not be seamless for Nussmeier, noting his first career start was on the road at Virginia Tech, a game LSU lost 26-8.
“I hope LSU fans show him some love and if things don’t go perfect right away, he really hasn’t played that many game and he’s going to be alright.”
“It’s nervewracking,” Mack said of his first start. “You put in the work. You’ve done everything, looked good at practice but football’s hard. Sometimes you throw a perfect pass, it hits player’s hands and it goes for an interception. You did nothing wrong but your stat line doesn’t look great…When you open up against a tough opponent at a neutral site, you just never know how things are going to go.”
“I think he’s going to have a great year,” Mauck said. “It may take a few games before he finds his footing and gets comfortable but I think he’s going to be a tremendous leader for us and really hope that he has a ton of success.”
For his career, Nussmeier has played in 18 games with his lone start coming in the ReliaQuest Bowl last year. He has 11 touchdown passes and seven interceptions.
LSU opens the season Sunday in Las Vegas against USC.
