Brian Kelly credits Harold Perkins for taking care of himself in-season

LSU linebacker Harold Perkins emerged on the scene in 2022 as one of the nation’s top freshman with an impactful first college campaign. Head coach Brian Kelly doesn’t expect his impact to drop at all heading into his sophomore season.

Kelly appeared on On3’s The Hard Count with J.D. PicKell this week, and Perkins obviously came up in discussion. The second-year Tigers coach said Perkins is a player that does the right things off the field to make him successful on gameday.

“Well, he’s an elite athlete certainly,” Kelly said. “And I think he takes care of himself. You know, he’s a guy that sleeps and eats and does all the right things away from the football center as well. And that’s — look, that’s going to be more and more important as we go through and we add playoffs in ’24. You’re talking about 16, 17-game schedules. The guys that don’t take care of themselves, they’re gonna break down later in the season.

“And Harold Perkins is a guy that took care of himself and was able to kind of slingshot himself later in the season into playing really good football as well. The second point to that is Matt House did a great job of moving him around and putting him in positions to be successful. So, you know one you get great athletes, right? But two, you got to put them in positions to succeed. I think both of those things happened with Harold Perkins.”

Harold Perkins is a top-10 player in the country, according to On3

Coming out of high school, Harold Perkins was considered one of the top prospects in the country. He was the No. 9 overall recruit and No. 1 linebacker in the 2022 class, according to the On3 Industry Ranking, a weighted average that utilizes all four major recruiting media companies.

It took just one season for Perkins to become a top-10 player nationally once again.

On3 ranks Perkins as the No. 1 linebacker and No. 7 player heading into the 2023 college football season.

“Perkins was a breakout star as a freshman last season, and not only is he the top linebacker back for this season, he was the No. 7 overall player, according to On3,” the On3 report on the top 10 linebackers said. “That should sum up how good he is sideline to sideline, in coverage and his physicality. Right now, it’s not close between him and the rest of the field. He finished the year with 72 tackles, 13 tackles for a loss, 7.5 sacks, four forced fumbles, an interception and three pass breakups.”