It’s sure to be an emotional night in Death Valley for both sides on Saturday.
LSU will be without starting nickel [autotag]Greg Brooks Jr.[/autotag] when it faces Arkansas at Tiger Stadium after he underwent surgery last Friday to remove a brain tumor. Brooks, who previously played with the Razorbacks for three seasons, will certainly be on the minds of both teams.
In the wake of Brooks’ diagnosis, Arkansas coach Sam Pittman said he would do anything in his power to help the player he previously coached.
“If it’s at all possible, if I thought that it would help him, I certainly would,” Pittman said, per On3. “Would do a lot of things.”
Pittman said he would like to meet with Brooks’ family, though he’s unsure if it would be allowed by NCAA rules limiting contact between coaches and opposing players.
“I can’t really answer that right now because I haven’t spoke with coach (Brian) Kelly,” Pittman said. “I want to make sure that, I don’t want to overstep any type of boundaries there and things of that nature. I want to have high respect for him and their program as well.
“At this moment I don’t have plans to see him, but I’m not telling you that we haven’t talked about it and that it’s not in the works, as well.”
As far as the team as a whole goes, Pittman said the team would compete in honor of Brooks, as LSU did last week in the win over Mississippi State.
“It’s amazing, you have to continue to play hard, you have to play in honor just like LSU did last week, in honor of Greg, and there’s certainly a big part of that on our team,” Pittman said, per On3. “We’re very competitive, we want to win, we want to do all that, but tragedy’s put in our life we have to honor those times and that’s what we’re going to do.
“But he was a wonderful teammate here and I could not think of one negative thing to say about him or his family. So it’s tough, our kids know it as well, but all we can do is represent him in the way that we play.”
LSU will face Arkansas on Saturday night at 6 p.m. CT in Baton Rouge.
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