On Monday, LSU head coach Brian Kelly spent most of his weekly press conference discussing the loss of linebacker Harold Perkins – and what it means for the Tigers moving forward.

Kelly confirmed Perkins suffered a knee injury that will keep him sidelined following surgery, and he went in-depth on the next available routes to take at both linebacker and on defense.

“It’s an injury we feel terrible about, especially for Harold and the work he has done to put himself in a great position,” Kelly said. “You lose players all the time, and you just feel terrible for them individually because of all the work and time they have put in.”

LSU will have to move forward with a pair of linebackers who have also landed starts across the first four games in veteran Greg Penn III and sophomore Whit Weeks. The Tigers get linebacker West Weeks back from injury, which is good news for a linebacker room that just lost the snap-count leader through four games.

LSU also has a trio of freshmen linebackers in Tylen Singleton, Davhon Key and Xavier Atkins.

Through four weeks, the Tigers have now lost three veterans to season-ending injury with Perkins, defensive tackle Jacobian Guillory (torn achilles) and running back John Emery (ACL injury).

“We will have somebody else step up like we (already) this year,” Kelly said. “We lost Jacobian Guillory, and a true freshman in Ahmad Breaux steps in and plays the past three weeks for us. We lose John Emery, and another freshman in Caden Durham steps in and does a good job for us. And, the same thing here. The next guy up will come in and rally and put us in a position where we have success, as well. These are difficult, but we have really good players who come here and can step in and fill in for LSU and move forward.

“If we want to play three linebackers on the field, the first guy that would move out there would be Whit Weeks (SAM), then West Weeks would move to MIKE linebacker and Greg Penn would play WILL. So, if we wanted to be in “Buffalo”, we are still in a really good position. We would probably activate Xavier Atkins as the next WILL in that type of situation. So, that’s what we would be in if we wanted to stay in the configuration that we were currently in (vs. UCLA).

“We would probably look at, also, going back into a STAR position with Major Burns playing the STAR, backed up by Kylin Jackson. That would be the other look we have. So, we have the versatility to be in either one of those defensive structures.”

Through four games, Perkins was LSU’s leader in snaps at linebacker (224), followed by Penn (194) and Whit Weeks (189). After battling through injury, West Weeks has appeared in two games and logged 27 snaps.

None of the freshmen linebackers have logged snaps on defense through the first four games, though Kelly said he’s confident the group is coming along to the point where their names can be called on game day.

“I think they are developing at the pace they should be,” Kelly said of the true freshmen trio who have been working behind Perkins, Penn and the Weeks brothers. “You saw Dominick McKinley in action, and you are going to see more guys who we gradually bring along to get involved in more action, because the schedule is obviously going to be robust. This has been about building our football team, knowing our strengths and weaknesses, the things we have to better at in all phases of the game … but at the same time developing some of the younger players so that when we have to call on them, we can get the kind of play necessary to win SEC games.”

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