Why Brian Kelly says LSU football 'made progress' with Harold Perkins at Sam linebacker

BATON ROUGE — It seems like each week LSU football star junior linebacker Harold Perkins is taking on a slightly different role in the team's defense than he had the week before.

Brian Kelly and Blake Baker's great Harold Perkins Experiment took another turn before the Tigers' game at South Carolina, when Perkins was then tasked with lining up at the strong side linebacker spot, also known as the Sam linebacker. No. 16 LSU's defense gave up a number of big plays to the Gamecocks but it also limited damage in the fourth quarter, which gave the offense a chance to win the game in the final minutes, 36-33.

Since Perkins has been on campus, he's worn a plethora of hats from being purely a pass rush specialist as a freshman, which he was very good at, to now in Year 3 under Kelly, filling roles with much more nuance and knowledge of the whole scheme.

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How did Perkins do playing the Sam linebacker position? Kelly said Perkins was around the action more, which is always going to be a positive for LSU (2-1, 1-0 SEC).

"I thought there were some good things to build on. I thought he started to feel a lot more comfortable," Kelly said. "He was in the action a lot more. There's growth there. He felt better and more comfortable. I think he'd like to have a couple of plays back, like the first tackle of the game. He had a chance for a safety."

Expectation surrounding Perkins is more time in this role will only spell more execution when those kinds of moments present themselves to him.

In the South Carolina game, Perkins finished with just three tackles, one of those went for a loss. While his stats won't jump off the page, Kelly and Baker feel their star linebacker is harder to take out of plays by opposing teams by lining him up at the Sam.

And to the coaching staff, it believes that's what it has been searching for with where to fit Perkins.

"I thought buy-and-large, he's starting to feel a lot more comfortable in playing, making some plays and playing with great energy," Kelly said. "The first glance at it in terms of where he played at the Sam, I think we walked away feeling like, 'OK, we made some progress here.'"

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Cory Diaz covers the LSU Tigers for The Daily Advertiser as part of the USA TODAY Network. Follow his Tigers coverage on Twitter: @ByCoryDiaz. Got questions regarding LSU athletics? Send them to Cory Diaz at bdiaz@gannett.com.

This article originally appeared on Lafayette Daily Advertiser: LSU football LB Harold Perkins 'more comfortable' in new role