DALLAS -- In a meeting room at the Omni Hotel with huge wall of windows looking out onto this city's glittery skyline, Harold Perkins pulled at his tighter-than-expected dress shirt collar and admitted what everyone covering LSU was thinking.
"I didn't expect to be here," the Tigers' star linebacker said Monday as he helped LSU kick off SEC media days. "I thought it would be some guy like Greg (Penn) or Major Burns, one of those guys who have been on the team longer than I have. But I'm happy to be here and represent the defense, kind of as the face of change of the defense."
Harold, you are too modest.
Perkins is THE face of change of this LSU defense in 2024. He's put on weight, moved off the edge and carries the considerable burden of improving the Tigers on his side of the ball enough to make LSU what it can be in 2024: a factor in the new 12-team College Football Playoff.
The Tigers' offense should still be (as a former LSU coach who shall not be named because of pending litigation once said) "pretty stinking good," even without Heisman winner Jayden Daniels and two NFL draft first-round wide receivers.
But first on the list, top of the charts, numero uno, Perkins has to be better to make the defense better. A defense whose coaching staff was wiped clean and replaced by a new brain trust built around coordinator Blake Baker.
"It's no secret," Perkins said of last season's defense. "We had a few hurdles to overcome. We will use that as motivation."
A few hurdles. Reporters have talked to Perkins hardly at all in his time at LSU. His last public utterance was back in October, after his interception helped the Tigers rally to win at Missouri. But apparently the modern-day Garbo has a gift for understatement.
Saying LSU's defense had to overcome a few hurdles in 2023 is like saying a few folks in Dallas own cowboy hats, pardner. Last year's unit deserved the added syllable "-less," as in defenseless. Of 130 FBS teams, the Tigers ranked 78th in points allowed, 85th in rushing defense, 105th in total defense and 115th in passing yards surrendered.
Conversely, LSU prolifically led the nation in total and scoring offense. But after losing Daniels and Malik Nabers and Brian Thomas, it would be unfair to expect those kinds of rankings once again.
Still, with the likes of Garrett Nussmeier and Kyren Lacy and Will Campbell and Mason Taylor, the Tigers should have one of the better units in the country in 2024. If the defense can meet them halfway -- say, just be average, 60th or so in points allowed or total defense -- there is no test on the schedule LSU can't pass.
Kentucky was 60th with 25.8 points per game allowed last year. Marshall was 60th with 376.5 yards allowed.
Just be Kentucky or Marshall in football, LSU defense. Is that really too much to ask?
It better not be. At some point along the way, the offense is likely to bog down at least a bit and only score 16 or 17 or 20 points. It will be up to the defense to hold the line and let the Tigers eke out something like a 20-17 victory. It may well mean the difference between a CFP berth or a no.
"We're confident," said Perkins, who likes that Baker wears cleats to practice to better demonstrate what he wants his players to do. "We trust coach Baker and what he can bring to the defense."
Trust in Perkins moving back to inside linebacker is a different matter. He was mostly ineffective there before going back to the edge midway through the season. Blame it on being too light -- Perkins said he weighed 215-217 pounds last season and is now 225 -- or former D-coordinator Matt House's overly complicated scheme, but it just didn't work.
I think I can speak for a nation full of LSU football skeptics when I say I'm taking an "I'll believe it when I see it" approach to Harold Perkins, inside linebacker 2.0.
Perkins says, basically, you've gotta believe.
"I actually love playing inside," he said. "You can't run from me."
Nussmeier is a believer in a bigger but still rangy No. 4 operating in the middle of LSU's defense, too.
"I think Perk is special, regardless of how much he weighs or whatever he's doing," Nussmeier said. "Whatever Perk's role is, I think he's going to execute it to a very high level no matter what they ask him to do. And I think y'all will see all the different things he's going be asked to do, and I think you're going to see him excel with them."
It's critical for LSU that Nussmeier is right. That Perkins is right.
The Tigers' season depends on it.