After suffering a blowout 45-24 loss to Florida State on Sunday, LSU’s coaching staff is reassessing several areas of the team as they are not happy with their performance in Orlando.
It seems like the only people who believe Harold Perkins should be an inside linebacker is the LSU coaching staff. Perkins is electric as an edge rusher, creating havoc and forcing turnovers.
But in one game as an inside linebacker, Perkins did not look like an All-American performer against Florida State. Just five tackles for Perkins as the Tigers defense allowed 494 yards.
On Tuesday, Coach Brian Kelly was asked about Perkins’ role. Kelly says it’s a question they’ve talked about.
“Player development has to be thought about, where he goes at the next level has to be thought about and then impacting our team, so I think there is a happy medium there that we probably can strike and we’ve already begun to look at how we can be most effective for Harold and for LSU,” said Kelly,
Perkins is 6-1, 220 pounds and there are not many edge rushers in the NFL at that size. Many of them are taller and bigger. So, we’ll see how this transpires, but I don’t see the LSU coaches giving up hope that Perkins can be an impactful player as an inside linebacker.
LSU allowed 359 yards passing against Florida State as quarterback Jordan Travis tossed four touchdown passes. We knew there was a chance that FSU could have a field day on LSU’s secondary, but scoring 31 unanswered points was unthinkable.
So was FSU that good or LSU’s secondary play that bad? Kelly says the defensive backs technique could have been better.
“It’s just not about your ability, you have to apply the technique and the traits necessary if you want to succeed in this game and we just didn’t do a good enough job, whether it was at the cornerback position or whether it was at the safety position, if you have to be in particular position, you better be there,” said Kelly.
It was also disappointing to see Aaron Anderson muff a punt. All the talk about Anderson’s ability as a punt returner went out the window when he could not handle a punt in the 1st half against Florida State. Kelly says Anderson will get more chances.
“He goes back to these old beliefs, I’m better than everyone, and I can just do it and that doesn’t work, especially when you got cats running down the field and they are on you before you know it and then you make a slight move and you are off centered a little bit and the ball can squirt out,” said Kelly.
Anderson should get chances this Saturday, considering LSU should be able to force a lot of punts against a Grambling State team that can’t match the Tigers talent.