ORLANDO — I watched and waited for Harold Perkins to pop.

Last year, you didn’t have to wait long to see Perkins do that in a game, especially once the true freshman started playing regular snaps in the LSU defense. He finished the year with 72 tackles, 13 tackles for loss and 7.5 sacks en route to first-team All-SEC honors. We saw Perkins take over games like he did against Arkansas, and it felt like every week in the latter half of the season, he did something special. It’s why Perkins was a no-doubt, preseason All-American entering 2023.

Following that breakout campaign as a disruptive pass-rusher, LSU moved Perkins to an off-ball linebacker spot. The thinking was that he’d step into a role like the one All-Pro linebacker Micah Parsons has with the Dallas Cowboys — allow the most disruptive player to impact the game from all over the field.

But if you watched and waited for Perkins to pop in his first game in his new position on Sunday night against FSU, you were disappointed.

Outside of a 3rd-down stop of FSU quarterback Jordan Travis short of the line to gain, you could’ve easily lost track of Perkins. He finished with 5 tackles, and he didn’t register a quarterback hurry or a tackle for loss.

LSU coach Brian Kelly was asked what was missing with Perkins’ performance amidst the second-half collapse against FSU.

“What was missing? Well, I mean, you know, he’s playing a position for the first time. So there’s a learning curve there,” Kelly said after Sunday night’s loss to FSU. “He’s learning. He’s learning how to play linebacker for the first time. You know, we put him in a position last year where he was see ball, get ball. Now he’s in a position where, you know, he’s got to get over the top. He’s got a back coming out of the backfield. He’s got to be disciplined and can’t lose his eyes on the quarterback mesh. Fourth down, there’s a lot going on there, and he’s trying to sort it out.

“You’re catching a young player early on in his career, and he’s going through some growing pains.”

Note that Kelly didn’t take the easy way out of saying “I’m gonna have to watch the film before I answer that.” He admitted that his preseason All-Americans had growing pains.

Yes, it was Perkins’ first game in his new role. Kelly’s right in saying that better days are ahead for the 19-year-old star. But there’s a problem with that.

Kelly had a team that some believed could compete for a Playoff spot, and in an all-important season-opener against fellow preseason top-10 squad Florida State, Perkins was neutralized in his new position. FSU put up 45 points and gained 494 yards while LSU failed to register a sack.

It wasn’t that Perkins never rushed the passer or spied the quarterback, but it certainly wasn’t often enough. Pro Football Focus charted Perkins with 58 defensive snaps:

  • 28 snaps in coverage (44.9 PFF grade)
  • 23 snaps defending the run (44.5 PFF grade)
  • 7 snaps as a pass-rusher (73.8 PFF grade)

To recap, the guy with PFF’s best pass-rushing grade for any Power 5 linebacker in 2022 was given just 7 opportunities to pin his ears back and rush the passer. As in, the guy who played a massive role in LSU’s 2022 midseason turnaround because of his ability to rush the passer had just 7 opportunities to do that in this new position.

That’s a problem.

In no world should Perkins be playing 4 times as many snaps in coverage as he should rushing the passer, especially in a game with such significant implications. This wasn’t Grambling State. LSU fans wanted to win a football game, not watch a player begin the transition to his most likely NFL position.

Just for a little perspective, here was Perkins’ snap count as an on-ball linebacker in 2022:

  • 220 snaps defending the run
  • 163 snaps as a pass-rusher
  • 130 snaps in coverage

Needless to say, Sunday night was a much different story.

To Florida State’s credit, part of neutralizing Perkins was Travis recognizing his presence and getting rid of the football quickly and on time. On one of those rushes, Perkins beat the tackle, but it didn’t matter because Travis hit Michigan State transfer Keon Coleman in the corner of the end zone for 1 of his 3 touchdowns (see Perkins lined up over FSU’s right tackle):

Part of Perkins’ quiet night could be attributed to an extremely savvy, mobile veteran quarterback. It was fair to wonder how Travis would handle Perkins, who didn’t play a single defensive snap in last year’s opener in New Orleans. We got our answer.

LSU’s best player didn’t have a chance to get his feet wet. Instead, he got put in a difficult spot, and now, it’s fair to wonder if LSU is mismanaging its most valuable asset. Perkins’ ability to bend — LSU teammate Mekhi Wingo praised the time in practice last year that he pulled out a “ghost move” ahead of the Mississippi State — is second to none. His ability to cover in space and tackle ball-carriers past the line of scrimmage is, so far, nothing to write home about.

Maybe it will be in time. The challenge is that while LSU does have that aforementioned Grambling State matchup in Week 2, the September slate is as challenging as any in college football. Florida State was the first of 4 Power 5 foes that had a winning record, and 3 of those September matchups are away from Baton Rouge. And all of those teams — FSU, Mississippi State, Arkansas and Ole Miss — returned their starting quarterback.

If Kelly was hoping to increase the approval rating for Perkins’ well-documented position switch, Sunday night was a failure. Perhaps some of that is playing the final result, but it didn’t help that LSU was bludgeoned late on FSU’s counter runs in the midst of a 31-point second half.

The biggest challenge of having an elite talent like Perkins is finding the best way to manage him. Nobody questioned if Perkins’ talent was being maximized in the second half of LSU’s 2022 season. Now, though, that conversation changed in a hurry. We don’t know how different that second half would’ve looked if he was in the same role he was in last year.

All we know is that in Game No. 1 in his new role, the clock hit zero before Perkins popped.