PALMER: Prep misses leave uncertainty in LSU’s QB future

By Hunt Palmer

Few teams in college football feature a better quarterback situation than LSU in 2025.

After the last seven days, LSU’s quarterback situation feels extremely shaky beyond that.

Rewind seven months.

Garrett Nussmeier joined the national leaders in completions, and LSU’s passing game was as productive as any in the SEC. While the backup situation wasn’t dripping with high-end talent, AJ Swann had started SEC games, and freshman Colin Hurley was redshirting.

Bryce Underwood, the nation’s top prep quarterback, had been committed for 10 months and was a frequent visitor to campus.

The Nussmeier to Underwood bridge from 2024 to 2027 felt as sturdy as is possible in the climate of the transfer portal which impacts college football quarterbacks more so than any position in sports.

Michigan’s inept offense and the unfathomably deep pockets of Larry Ellison triggered tremors that rocked LSU stable situation, not for 2025, but for the future.

Underwood decommitted just a couple of weeks before Signing Day, leaving LSU without a high school signee in 2025. Joe Sloan and Brian Kelly went to work in the transfer portal and did yeoman’s work to lure Michael Van Buren from Mississippi State after he started eight games as a freshman at Mississippi State.

That meant that Nussmeier, who pledged in December of 2024 to return to LSU, would be backed up by a proven SEC starter in 2025. But the search for stability and depth was on in 2025 to sign a high schooler in 2026 to add depth.

That search has failed thus far.

LSU actively pursued Texas product Bowe Bentley who picked his childhood favorite in Oklahoma. There was a pivot to Bryson Beaver. He picked Oregon.

A two-month dead period has begun where in-person contact is now illegal. LSU cannot host a quarterback on campus until camp cranks up, and the prospects of signing an elite prep signal caller are now waning.

With Nussmeier, Van Buren, Hurley and Ju’Juan Johnson, LSU’s ready to roll into August.

What about January?

Nussmeier will be gone. Forecasting the departure of either Van Buren or Hurley is neither founded nor unreasonable. Both players chose to come to LSU and have shown no signs of looking elsewhere. At the same time, would anyone be surprised to see a quarterback entering his third year as a backup transfer out? Of course not, and one of them is going to be the third team quarterback this fall.

If that happens, LSU will have one scholarship quarterback and Johnson as of the middle of January with no high schooler on the way.

That’s dire.

Quarterbacks will flood the transfer portal in December. LSU will look the crop over and pursue multiple options. If Van Buren, hypothetically, is the remaining quarterback on campus, can LSU promise starting time to a high-profile transfer? If so, does Van Buren stick around?

The beauty of adding a high school quarterback, as opposed to a transfer, is that the prep prospect generally handles a year on the bench far more gracefully. Credit to Van Buren. He’s doing that as a proven SEC starter. That’s not always the case.

Much will be made about the 2027 quarterback crop that LSU is heavily recruiting.

Five-star Elijah Havens is from Baton Rouge. Garrett’s younger brother Colton Nussmeier is a highly-touted prospect in Texas. Shreveport’s Peyton Houston has been massively productive at Evangel Christian and holds an LSU offer.

That group, talented as it may be, likely won’t be ready for SEC action until 2028. It’s 2025.

If Van Buren or Hurley truly emerges as a high-level player in 2026 and 2027 while remaining healthy, the conversation becomes moot. That’s a lot of assumptions, though.

Depth is a difficult thing to cultivate at the position given the current landscape, but that doesn’t make it any less important.

The Nussmeier-Underwood-2027 signee looked so promising so recently. Van Buren’s addition in January shored things up in 2025. LSU’s misses from the prep ranks in this cycle have reintroduced doubt moving forward.

Sloan’s two-quarterback track record at LSU is as sterling as any quarterback coach in the country over three years. Over the next seven months, LSU has to find another quarterback to add depth and/or take the snaps in 2026 and 2027.

That’s non-negotiable.