LSU’s defensive struggles in 2023 held the Tigers back from reaching their lofty goals of winning the SEC and contending for a national championship, and amid a year that saw the team rank in the bottom third of college football in most major defensive categories, star pass rusher Harold Perkins fell relatively silent. The edge rusher turned inside linebacker struggled to adapt to a new position, yet head coach Brian Kelly said this week that Perkins will remain in the middle of the defense next season rather than return to the edge.
While the decision to keep Perkins in the box could limit his statistical production, 247Sports’ Bud Elliott argues it is a positive move for the former five-star recruit’s development. The long-term benefit of acclimating to the inside linebacker position could outweigh the short-term struggles.
“In 2022, Perkins was a terror rushing off the edge, but as the season wore on, teams did start to run the ball at him pretty effectively,” Elliott said. “Look what A&M did at the end of 2022. So for ‘23, Perkins tried to play linebacker, and he didn’t do a very good job of it. But the thing is, if he’s going to go to the NFL and be a high draft pick and be a stud, he’s not an edge rusher at 6-1 and 220 pounds. He’s going to have to learn to play the linebacker position and play it well.”
Perkins exploded out of the gate as a true freshman, landing on countless Freshman All-America lists and picking up second-team All-SEC honors in his debut college football campaign. His 13 tackles for loss and 7.5 sacks led all Power Five freshmen and ranked No. 2 and No. 3, respectively, in the SEC.
Last year, though, Perkins’ numbers plateaued. Despite starting five additional games, he posted just three more tackles, two fewer sacks, and an identical 13 tackles for loss in comparison to his freshman year production.
“It’s okay to be a superstar in high school, to be a five-star athlete and have a learning curve in college,” Elliott said. “LSU will still use him as a pass rusher, but he’s probably going to have to do so from the linebacker position if he wants to make real money in the NFL. So no, I don’t think that Matt House, the outgoing LSU defensive coordinator, and Blake Baker, the incoming LSU defensive coordinator, are both idiots for wanting to play him at linebacker. The better teams will swallow him up in the run game if he plays on the edge.”
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It is not as though Perkins completely fell off the map at inside linebacker, though. In fact, he remained one of the most skilled and terrifying defensive forces in the SEC. Should he experience a breakthrough junior year at his new position, the Cypress (Texas) Cy Park product — who ranked as the No. 1 linebacker in the 2022 recruiting class — has All-American potential.
