After going down with an apparent knee injury on Saturday, star linebacker Harold Perkins Jr has officially been ruled out for the remainder of the 2024 season, as LSU coach Brian Kelly confirmed the early reports.
LSU coach Brian Kelly confirms that linebacker Harold Perkins Jr will be out for the remainder of the 2024 season
Late in the LSU game on Saturday, college football fans all over the country were put on alert, as star Tiger linebacker Harold Perkins Jr was helped off the field with what appeared at the time, as a lower body injury of some sort.
Then, on Sunday, the news only appeared to worsen, as Matt Zenitz of 247Sports reported that it was trending towards a season ender for the talented junior.
Now, while we don’t yet know the exact diagnosis, LSU coach Brian Kelly did take to the podium on Monday to confirm that they’ve lost their star defender for the remainder of the 2024 college football season.
“Harold Perkins will be lost for the season with a significant knee injury,” the Tiger head coach began.
“We’re not certain about the specifics relative to time and place for surgery, but it looks to be an ACL injury, and more details relative to that, I can’t get into right now, but certainly an injury that we feel terrible about. Especially for Harold, and the work that he’s done to put himself in a great position. Look, you lose players all the time. You just feel terrible for them individually because of all the work and time they put in.”
With his season now having more than likely come to a close, Perkins Jr will have ended his 2024 campaign with 17 total tackles and 1.5 tackles for loss.
Next man up
Through the first four games of the season, Perkins Jr had quickly become something of a Swiss Army knife for the purple and gold defense, filling holes as an edge rusher and pass coverage man all the same.
Unfortunately, following this weekend’s injury, this now means that LSU defensive coordinator Blake Baker will need to find someone to step up in his place, and while we don’t yet know who it will be, Brian Kelly at the very least sounds confident that they will find the right person.
“We’ll have somebody else step up, like we’ve had this year, right? We lose Jacobian [Guillory], and that was a tough loss for us, but a true freshman, Ahmad Breaux comes in, and does a great job for us the last three weeks. Plays great football for us. We lose John Emery, and another true freshman comes in – Caden Durham – and does a great job for us. Similarly, we’ll have somebody step in here as well, and the next man in will come in and rally and put us in a position where we have success as well.”
For the time being, the main candidate to fill in as a third linebacker is senior West Weeks, who turned himself into a reliable depth piece over the offseason. Another option could be veteran safety Major Burns, who worked in the star position this summer and has experience at several spots along the Tiger defense.
“These are difficult, but we’ve got really good players that have come in, and stepped in, and filled in for LSU, and we’ll move forward.”
While the purple and gold coaching staff will ultimately find someone to step in as a replacement, it’s important to remember that there are very few players in the entire sport of football that possess the kind of athleticism Harold Perkins Jr brings to the field every Saturday. Replacing a player of his caliber in the middle of a season is no easy task, so expect Blake Baker to toy around with multiple schemes this coming Saturday vs. South Alabama, as a means of finding the best possibly strategy for his group before SEC play returns on October 12 vs. Ole Miss.
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