LSU quarterback Garrett Nussmeier had to wait to be the No. 1 man in the huddle precisely because of a player who did what Nuss wouldn’t do.

Transfer.

“I’m going to be focused not being caught up in the moment,” said Nussmeier, who will be making his first start since 2020 when he was still in high school. “This is what I love to do, I love to play the sport of football, I love representing this university and getting the opportunity to do so is going to be fun.”

His decision really did shock a lot of people in the college football world.

“I think [with] anyone in my situation there are opportunities and you have to look and listen to things, but I never entered the portal so I wasn’t talking to people,” Nussmeier said back in August. “I wasn’t thinking about that. I wanted to focus on the situation that I am in here. I felt wanted, felt like this is where I should be and to finish what I started.”

Jayden Daniels, a transfer from Arizona State two seasons ago, just had one of the most awe-inspiring campaigns in LSU and college football history, taking home the Heisman in what should have been more of a landslide. Had it not been for a porous LSU defense and three losses, it would have been.

Daniels has decided to forgo the ReliaQuest Bowl game against Wisconsin, paving the way for Nussmeier, the redshirt sophomore from Lake Charles, to finally have his time to lead. It was certainly a business decision for Daniels, but this couldn’t have worked out any better for the future of LSU football, which may also have been part of Daniels’ thinking. He and Nussmeier seemed to share a close bond on and off the field, and it wouldn’t be out of the question to think that the decision was made easier knowing it would be someone well-deserving taking over the reins.

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Nussmeier is hardly the typical backup, as even Coach Kelly himself admitted last spring that he would be entering the 2023 season with two starting SEC quarterbacks. A former top-100 recruit and son of football legend Doug Nussmeier, Nuss had Georgia at least somewhat nervous in what had been a first half embarrassment for LSU in the 2022 SEC Championship. In just the second half, he slung it around the field to the tune of 294 yards and two touchdowns, creating Heisman highlight-reel plays. He only embellished Tiger fans’ excitement when he rotated with Daniels during the 2023 Citrus Bowl against Purdue and threw for 173 yards on 11-of-15 passing and two touchdowns.

Needless to say, he would have been in the upper half of SEC quarterbacks had he not been playing behind the all-world talent of Jayden Daniels. But Nuss has stuck it out, something that five-star true freshman Walker Howard didn’t do when he transferred to Ole Miss after the 2022 season, which says something about both Nuss and Kelly’s program. Of course given the new landscape of NIL in college football, it may speak to that as well.

But most of all, it may say something about Nussmeier’s upbringing by a dad with a quarterback background, and his simple love for the state of Louisiana.

“It matters to me to wear this state on my jersey. I think it means something to a lot of guys on our team. I was born in Lake Charles. My family is in Lake Charles. Being a kid who moved around so much—Louisiana was only constant in my life, and every time I would cross over the border into this state, it felt like home,” Nussmeier said.

Coach Kelly knows that Nussmeier is ready. And he knows how much the kid loves wearing the purple and gold.

“He’s put in his time,” Kelly said (start at the 1:00 mark), “and he’s been unselfish in the sense that he’s waited for this opportunity. He loves LSU. In this age where everybody wants it now, he waited for his chance.”

There is an irony here, of course, that Daniels didn’t love Arizona State equally so, didn’t stay the course there, but that simply speaks to the power of the SEC, to the allure of playing for a program with three national titles in twenty years, and maybe–just maybe–continued with the leadership and friendship Daniels and Nussmeier share. The transfer portal was the right thing to do in one case, and not the right thing to do in the other.

And LSU fans have exactly zero problem reaping the benefits of both.

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Jeff LeJeune is the author of several books, writer for RVIVR, editor, master of English and avid historian, teacher and tutor, aspiring ghostwriter and podcaster, and creator of LeJeune Said. Visit his website at jefflejeune.com, where you can find a conglomerate of content.