LSU football: Perkins overcame the flu and messed with Arkansas
By Les East
Published:
Harold Perkins Jr. didn’t have a letdown.
A lot of his LSU teammates seemed to be less inspired for the Tigers’ game at Arkansas on Saturday than they were for the game against Alabama a week earlier at Tiger Stadium.
It’s not surprising that some players would have difficulty regaining the degree of intensity that produced a 33-32 overtime victory against the heavily-favored Crimson Tide under less inspiring circumstances.
Logic says the most likely candidates for such a dropoff in intensity would be freshmen.
Perkins is a freshman. But he defies logic.
Logic says a linebacker playing in his 10th college football game couldn’t dominate an SEC game. But that’s exactly what Perkins did in LSU’s 13-10 victory over the Razorbacks.
Logic says a linebacker shouldn’t have a bigger impact on a game than any of the quarterbacks or running backs that played.
But, with apologies to Josh Williams, that’s exactly what Perkins did.
He — with notable help from BJ Ojulari and Greg Penn III — played with a passion that gradually awakened some of his slumbering teammates and carried the rest across the finish line.
Perkins had 4 sacks and 2 forced fumbles, including 1 that Mekhi Wingo recovered for the Tigers at the Razorbacks’ 44 with 1:19 remaining.
After the game, head coach Brian Kelly said Perkins threw up before the game as a result of having the flu.
Kelly told Perkins that it was similar to Michael Jordan’s famous flu game, when Jordan threw up while leading the Chicago Bulls to a clinching victory over the Utah Jazz in the NBA Finals.
When the coach referenced “MJ,” Kelly recounted, Perkins replied, “Who’s MJ?”
No one should be asking “Who’s Harold Perkins?” anymore.
Perkins received the game ball after what had to have been the easiest such decision in Kelly’s 30-plus years of coaching.
“I don’t think there’s enough superlatives to talk about this young man,” Kelly said of Perkins.
Arkansas played without injured starting quarterback KJ Jefferson. He was replaced by Malik Hornsby, whose primary asset is speed — who, in fact, is one of the fastest quarterbacks in college football.
But when running with a football in his hands Saturday, he wasn’t fast enough to outrun Perkins.
The linebacker ran down the quarterback laterally on multiple occasions.
Perkins sacked Hornsby on a 3rd-and-7 in the 2nd quarter, forcing a fumble that Ojulari recovered. That turnover led to the 1st of 2 Damian Ramos field goals, giving the Tigers their 1st points, tying the score and serving as the 1st cup of coffee for the sleepy teammates.
In the 3rd quarter, Perkins sacked Hornsby on consecutive plays, not long before Arkansas coach Sam Pittman decided to try a different quarterback — Cade Fortin, who’s not nearly as fast as Hornsby (or Perkins) but is a more decisive and accurate passer.
Fortin took his team on a 94-yard drive that produced a touchdown, reducing LSU’s lead to 13-10 early in the 4th quarter.
The Razorbacks would get 2 more possessions to try to tie or go ahead.
The 1st came to an end when Perkins knocked the ball out of Fortin’s hand as he was starting to throw, creating an incompletion.
The 2nd produced the game-clinching fumble on the Razorbacks’ final offensive play.
The Tigers prevailed in spite of a bunch of shortcomings.
They prevailed despite Jayden Daniels having just 86 yards passing and 10 yards rushing.
They prevailed despite the combination of erratic pass blocking and rare instances of receivers getting open, leading to Daniels being sacked 7 times.
They prevailed because with the flu, Perkins was better than any player on either side.
Ojulari — who, along with Penn, had the best defensive games of the season that no one will remember because they were overshadowed by Perkins — said Perkins really does know who “MJ” is.
It’s just that Perkins “likes messing with people.”
Every Arkansas offensive player now knows what it’s like to be messed with by Harold Perkins.
Les East is a New Orleans-based football writer who covers LSU for SaturdayDownSouth.com. Follow him on Twitter @Les_East.
