[autotag]Harold Perkins[/autotag] made one of his biggest plays of the season when the Tigers’ defense needed it the most.
Missouri’s offense was able to do whatever they wanted against the LSU defense for most of the first half. Both teams traded blows before Missouri got off to a 22-10 lead. With five minutes left before halftime, the LSU defense needed a stop in the worst way and Perkins made a huge play.
Perkins dropped into coverage and picked off a Missouri pass to give LSU the ball back right before halftime. It was a play that LSU had not yet run this season but it worked to perfection.
Brian Kelly was asked his thoughts on the interception after the game.
Yeah, we were in some new coverages they hadn’t seen before,” he said. “We hadn’t done that with Harold before where he showed like he was blitzing and then he came out and he ran trail coverage against a wide receiver. We just feel like with him now we’ve established him as a SAM linebacker/nickel that we can do some creative things with him where he can be coming off the edge, or he can turn and run and carry vertical seams like he did.
“And it’s been taking us a while to really get his role defined and it’s caused us some pain in the sense of the structure of our defense, I think we’ve now established where he can best fit. And then it really, really allows us to be consistent with how we set our front and really establish the techniques that we want to run.”
Perkins can really do it all for the LSU defense. He can rush the passer, stuff the run at linebacker, and defend like a cornerback.
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