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The 2025 Read & Reaction Florida Gators Preview Magazine

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Nussmeier vs. Lagway: Who deserves the hype?

I didn’t expect it to be all that controversial, but the question I’m getting most about our preseason preview magazine isn’t why I’ve got D.J. Lagway as the best QB in the SEC. It’s why do I have LSU QB Garrett Nussmeier ranked the 11th best signal caller in the SEC.

I do admit that I have a general disdain for Garrett’s father, as I saw him drag Florida’s offense to unfathomable depths as Jim McElwain’s offensive coordinator. As disappointing as the 2020 season was with Kyle Trask putting up nearly 40 points per game and the defense unable to stop anything, I’d contend that the real “miss” when it comes to championship caliber teams is the 2016 team that ranked 4th overall in yards per play allowed right up there with Ohio State, Michigan and Alabama, but ranked 100th in the same stat on offense under the guidance of Nussmeier and Luke Del Rio/Austin Appleby.

However, I consider myself to be able to separate my personal feelings about a coordinator and player and rely on stats and film to decide about how a player is going to perform. And given that I may really have to with rumors that Florida is interested in Colton Nussmeier at QB, this is a good exercise.

So what do the stats say we should expect from Garrett Nussmeier in 2025? And is D.J. Lagway really that much better than him as I contend?

High School Stats and “the jump”

Here are senior year high school stats for two players and I ask if you can tell me which one is going to be a star?

These are both pretty good stat lines, with good completion percentages and TD:INT ratios. They’re both relatively similar in yards per attempt as well.

QB1 is Garrett Nussmeier. QB2 is Luke Del Rio.

We have lots of film on both Nussmeier at LSU and Del Rio at Florida at this point, but I still think it is instructive to look at their high school stats. The reason is that I have found that we can predict what a player will do at the college level with pretty stunning accuracy if we look at his high school stats, particularly his accuracy and efficiency (yards per attempt).

For Nussmeier, we have a player who completed a high percentage of his throws (66.8% his Junior year and 71.7% his Senior year), but at a relatively inefficient clip (8.8 yards per attempt and 9.5 yards per attempt those years). I would definitely say his numbers are better than Del Rio’s, but they’re not so much better that I would expect some massive separation from the two.

This is pretty much what played out on the field last season. Nussmeier’s QB rating last year for LSU was 142.7, which was below average for starting QBs in the country. He was pretty accurate (64.2%), but the thing driving that rating was an average of 7.7 yards per attempt, also below average for FBS QBs.

Compare that to Lagway.

Lagway completed 72.1% of his throws his senior year in high school, but for 11.5 yards per attempt. This suggests that not only is Lagway accurate, but that his accuracy translates deep down field. His 58:8 TD:INT ratio his senior year is also pretty staggering.

But that also translated onto the field last year, as Lagway had a QB rating of 154.9 (above average for FBS) and averaged 10.0 yards per attempt. The only thing missing his freshman year was accuracy (59.9% last year) and that is something that translates really strongly from high school so I expect to improve.

Because he also played for LSU, the question Tigers fans are asking is whether Nussmeier can take a leap like Joe Burrow did between 2018 and 2019. But I think Gators fans should be asking the same thing of Lagway, and have a better reason to do so.

In Burrow’s first year as starting QB for the Tigers, he completed 57.8% of his throws for 7.6 yards per attempt. However, his senior year high school stats are really close to Lagway’s, both for completion percentage and yards per attempt. The next year, Burrow completed 76.3% of his throws for 10.8 yards per attempt.

Nussmeier was already at 64.2% accuracy last season. To expect some huge jump to that number is probably unrealistic. Additionally, Burrow’s yards per attempt were low because he was inaccurate. That isn’t true for Nussmeier, and it actually isn’t true for Lagway either. Lagway was incredibly efficient even though he wasn’t very accurate.

The data is pretty clear: the guy primed to take a big-time jump isn’t Nussmeier. It’s Lagway.

Throw Distribution

Why do the numbers look like this? It’s pretty simple, and has to do with each QBs throw distribution by air yards.

The above chart shows QB rating, throw frequency, and yards per attempt separated by the distance the throw travels (thanks to www.secstatcat.com for the numbers). What we see is that Lagway throws the ball deep more often than Nussmeier, but he’s also way more efficient when he does so (QB rating of 253.6 vs. 166.7). The result is that Lagway averages 19.2 yards per throw on deep shots versus 11.5 for Nussmeier.

But I have to admit that before looking at the numbers, I expected Nussmeier to absolutely dominate Lagway on quicker, shorter throws. He does separate somewhat (especially at the 0-10 air yard distance), but if we look at the efficiency numbers – both QB rating and yards per attempt – those advantages are relatively small. And given that throws less than 10-yards don’t turn into points nearly as often as throws that go 20-plus yards, this is a clear advantage for Lagway.

But you might ask something about Lagway’s performance against Samford and doesn’t that skew the numbers? So I ran the exact same analysis for Nussmeier and Lagway against just SEC opponents, and the story looks exactly the same.

In this case, Lagway looks even better (23.3 yards per attempt) and Nussmeier looks slightly worse (11.0 yards per attempt) deep. But Nussmeier looks worse at the intermediate distances as well.

As the level of competition went up, Lagway’s strength got stronger. But as the level of competition went up, Nussmeier’s strength waned.

The Running Game

Years ago, I came up with a stat to measure QB performance called Yards Above Replacement (YAR). The fundamental reason I like YAR (beyond my own ego) is that it posits that sacks are a QB stat. And since sacks absolutely kill drives, those drive killers have to be factored into any evaluation we have of QB play.

Last season, Nussmeier ran 34 times for -38 yards (-1.1 yards per rush), well below average for an FBS QB (2.7 yards per rush). So that means we have a QB who is below average on a yards per throw basis and a yards per rush basis. The result is that YAR has him overall as a below average QB, with a value of -0.22.

On the other hand, Lagway had 51 rush attempts for 101 yards in 2024 (2.0 yards per rush). That is still below average from an efficiency standpoint, but much less so than Nussmeier. Additionally, Lagway averaged nearly 10 yards per rush his last two seasons in high school (on 149 carries) and his mobility was clearly hurt due to a hamstring injury suffered against Georgia. Even still, Lagway managed 14 rushes for -13 yards in those games after the injury, essentially equaling the average for a healthy Nussmeier. The result is that Lagway’s YAR in 2024 was 1.53, which is right around where Kyle Trask graded out in the 2020 season.

There actually is a silver lining here for Nussmeier. At only 34 rushes, his rate of taking sacks was relatively low. He is certainly able to get the ball out without taking those drive killing sacks on a consistent basis. That’s why LSU was so successful on third downs last year. However, as we’ve seen in the stats and as we’ll see in the next section, third down conversions don’t matter that much if you can’t drive the ball downfield.

Film Study

I rewatched the entire LSU vs. Florida game from last year to compare the two QBs. I think there are very clear things we can see on film that differentiate the two.

On this play, Nussmeier has his back to the defense to perform the play-action fake, but the Gators defense doesn’t shift anything post-snap, so he should be able to follow his pre-snap read. When he hits his drop, the Florida defensive end is coming around the edge. Nussmeier feels the pressure well and steps up in the pocket.

I’ve paused the video right as he steps up into the pocket. His receiver (Kyren Lacy, #2) is coming open with no deep safety help. If Nussmeier lets this one go right as he steps up into the pocket, LSU potentially has a big play. But he doesn’t. Instead, he brings his eyes down to his outlet and takes a sack.

Compare that to Lagway on perhaps the biggest play of the game.

On this play, Lagway also has his back to the defense to perform the play-action fake. He also is pressured by the LSU defensive line on his blind side. But as Lagway steps up in the pocket, he keeps his eyes downfield.

I think you can actually argue that Lagway threw to the wrong guy here. The deep safety is crossed up and so I understand why he threw to Elijhah Badger (#6), but Chimere Dike (#17) is wide open too in much the same way Lacy was on the LSU play above.

But the point is that when Lagway had the opportunity to let it fly, he did. Nussmeier was looking for a check-down.

This isn’t an isolated incident.

On this play, Nussmeier ends up running for a yard and setting up LSU for a field goal try, but he had a touchdown if he’d taken the shot. Based on LSU’s route concept, this is a read where if the outside corner stays with the out route, then the inside receiver (again Lacy) has a one-on-one opportunity with Florida’s safety.

The Gators corner stays with the out route. That means Nussmeier has one-on-one against a safety. He is looking that way. But he doesn’t throw the ball, forcing LSU to settle for a field goal late.

This one is more straightforward for Lagway, but the concept is the same. Because LSU’s safety (#9) is right over Lagway’s nose, there’s no way he can get out to help the field side defensive back on a corner route. Additionally, with the corner so far off the ball at the snap, Badger can get a running start to try to get him off balance. Lagway recognizes this immediately and delivers the ball.

Badger beats the LSU corner badly. The back shoulder throw makes it an easy pitch-and-catch. But even if the throw had been bad, it is still probably a TD. This rep was won by Lagway being willing to let the ball go and trust his receiver to get open before he was actually open.

Finally, we have a third-down play and a pretty simple read. Florida’s pre-snap look is a 2-deep coverage (leaving the middle of the field open) with a deep safety for each side to help its two defensive backs against each of the four receivers. The reason this is a simple read is because since this is third-and-5, if the deep safety sinks, that leaves one-on-one coverage for the outside receiver coming across the middle. If that deep safety creeps up, then Nussmeier has a shot down the seam.

Florida’s safety sinks deep, but Nussmeier actually has the shot down the seam anyway because that safety doesn’t work back towards the middle of the field. That is a tough throw, but with a minute left and down 11 points, it’s a chance you probably need to take.

But even if you grant that it wasn’t a perfect chance to take, the other receiver coming underneath is wide open, so much so that he is frustrated when Nussmeier doesn’t get the ball to him.

Compare that to Lagway when he gets the same concept on a third-and-10 down by three in the third quarter. The safety in the middle of the field spins over the top of the two receivers on the boundary side of the field, essentially taking away the deep throw down the seam to Arlis Boardingham (#8). That leaves Badger (#6) on the out route coming underneath.

There are two impressive things for Lagway on this play beyond just the throw. First, he recognizes that LSU has changed its coverage post-snap and makes the proper adjustment to that change. Second, the ball gets out so quickly. There is zero hesitation.

In fact, if I were to say what was clear when re-watching the LSU/Florida game from last year, it was that Nussmeier was able to make sure that he made a solid play a bunch of times, but when the opportunity to take the shot appeared, he hesitated. Lagway really struggled at times to make the solid play, but when the opportunity to take the shot appeared, the ball was out of his hands in a hurry.

Takeaway

Nussmeier isn’t a terrible QB. You can win a lot of games with him at the position, but the hype around him given his limited efficiency thus far as a starter confuses me.

I know that opinion puts me in the minority. You’ve got guys like Reece Davis and Mel Kiper insisting Nussmeier is going to be a first round pick. DraftKings has Nussmeier at +900 odds to win the Heisman Trophy, second only behind Arch Manning (+700). But that’s for a guy who sported the 41st ranked QB rating in the country last year among qualifying QBs and given some of his peripherals, doesn’t have a clear way to make a huge jump other than getting better at throwing the ball deep.

Meanwhile, I keep getting asked whether the hype around Lagway is justified and whether he can take a leap. I actually think Lagway was excellent last year not just for a true freshman, but just in general. That’s because the things that he showed he could do well translate often to seven points. He also has major areas where we should expect him to improve in 2025 that I think will make the offseason hype seem like we were underselling him.

A one-legged Lagway got the best of Nussmeier in the Swamp last year. The question will be, can he do it two years in a row.

The beauty of this debate is that we’re going to get an answer on September 13.

The Magazine

Again, if you enjoyed this article, you are going to enjoy our preseason magazine. We do breakdowns like this about Lagways vs. the rest of the SEC, what changed when Ron Roberts took over calling plays on defense, and where Florida gained an edge on special teams in 2024 that had been a weakness in Napier’s tenure thus far. Order Now!