LSU Tigers and Brian Kelly need to sit back and let Harold Perkins cook as their key to 2024 season success

The 2024 college football season could be boom or bust for the LSU Tigers and head coach Brian Kelly. They just lost a ton of production to the NFL on both sides of the ball, but the talent they return still looks like a Top 15 roster in the country. However, if they don't utilize that top notch talent correctly, the wheels could come off quickly, as demonstrated by last season's defense.

New defensive coordinator Blake Baker's scheme and specialty has been all about properly utilizing off ball linebackers and playmaking safeties throughout his career, so hopefully that yields strong results. The most important player and key to 2024 season success this year will be star linebacker (and future first round NFL Draft pick) Harold Perkins. There's been some fan skepticism surrounding his role this year already, so will Baker and Kelly actually just sit back and let him cook?

Harold Perkins, LSU's one hope on defense

There's a real argument for Harold Perkins as the single best defensive player in the entire country. Very few players can defend the run, get after the passer, and then drop into coverage at elite levels across the board, but Perkins is an exception.

Through his first two seasons Perkins has 120 tackles, a pass rush pressure rate of 20%, 16 total sacks, and allows a passer rating when targeted around 75 (incredible for linebackers of any kind). And when Perkins is at his best, he's playing in every single facet throughout a game. Take for example his Mississippi State performance from 2023. He defended a deep wheel route over 20 yards downfield on one play, and then immediately snagged a sack on the next!

Perkins was off to a hot start on defense last season, but then for some reason the coaching staff started to pigeon hole him into one specific role through entire games. Not only did his numbers suffer from this, but LSU's defense quickly dropped outside the Top 100 in many categories.

For example, in the Ole Miss game last season, the Tigers clearly wanted to bring the heat via the blitz so he logged more than 30 pass rush attempts in that game alone while only dropping into coverage one time. That commitment to making Perkins a one-dimensional defender absolutely backfired as Ole Miss put up 55 points, ultimately defeating LSU.

Then the next two weeks LSU overcorrected, forcing Perkins into a role where he was dropping into coverage over 70 times in a two-week span. That pattern of obnoxious overcommitment to one type of play for Perkins continued for the vast majority of the rest of the season, leading to much lower numbers for him and a predictable, exploitable defense for LSU as a whole.

Related: LSU Tigers have two big trap games on the schedule in 2024 that they need to approach carefully

While new defensive coordinator Blake Baker and Brian Kelly have made it clear that Harold Perkins will still slide into the team's primary weak side linebacker role, it's also been emphasized that they want him to get after the quarterback again this year. That off-ball linebacker role and commitment to putting him in coverage far too often down the stretch last year was likely mismanagement of his talents, but it sounds like Baker and Kelly understand that.

If LSU just sits back and lets Harold Perkins cook as the ultimate do-it-all defensive weapon on every down instead of forcing him into one particular role each week the Tigers defense could take an astronomical leap forward this fall. Let's hope the staff leans into his versatility so LSU's defense isn't a predictable, sad mess again in 2024. Perkins is way too talented to waste on a bad defense any longer.

Related: Three potential LSU Tigers breakout players for the 2024 college football season

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And if you want to look back on Harold Perkins' insane highlights from the 2023 season just watch this epic video below!