An Article that Sums up the LSU Ryan Perriloux Problem

This an excellent article by one of my favortite sportswriters on the Perrilloux situation. He sums it up quite well. Perrilloux frustrates a lot of us because so many of us really really like him. It is not only because he is a talented QB and could lead LSU to great success. He is truly a nice and playful young man.

The problem is can he lead? Former LSU QB Matt Flynn could and did especially when it was getting pretty tough out there.Ryan is not a "thug" at all. He is a jokester with a cocky attitude. Even many of his trangressions can be forgiven as just regular college stuff. Such as the fake ID thing.

However for some reason Ryan fails to realize he is being given the keys to the Playboy Mansion. Maybe he does but thinks he is not expendable. Well that might change. I very much want Ryan to succeed both for LSU and his own future. I realize he is not in a easy situation. More people in Baton Rouge care what Ryan Perrilloux is doing in Baton Rouge every second of the day than they do the Governor. However living with that pressure is just part of the deal.

Dubois: Miles may not have answer on Perrilloux-

The race has seemingly always been whether Les Miles could find the breaking point for Ryan Perrilloux before Miles reached his own with LSU’s talented but wayward quarterback.
The finish line is in sight, but not in a promising way for Perrilloux.

For more than his three years as an LSU recruit and player, Perrilloux has been unbreakable.
Therein lies his incredible gifts as an athlete. Therein lies the problem as he settles into his third confirmed LSU suspension in nine months.

His is a most remarkable reset button.
At 14 he jumped out from behind a corner of the house to scare his sister. Her date, not knowing who was behind the mask Perrilloux playfully wore, shot him in the chest.
The bullet pierced his liver, his diaphragm, both lungs, the top of his stomach and came close to his heart.
Three months and two surgeries later, Perrilloux was given the green light to play basketball.

Playing AAU ball a few months later, he dunked and tore a knee ligament. East St. John High School football coach Larry Dauterive heard a doctor say not to expect Perrilloux in uniform until the playoffs.
Perrilloux was available for the start of the season.

Suspended in May 2007 for trying to enter a casino as a 20-year-old using someone else’s identification, he missed summer workouts with his teammates. That’s not to say Perrilloux would soon be out of shape.
Two suspensions later he is a veteran of predawn sprints up and down Tiger Stadium steps, sprints so numerous they become the labored climbing that leads to full-blown — literally — nausea.

And still he’s unbroken, it seems, sufficiently in breach of team rules to again be suspended indefinitely by Miles on Monday.

That’s less than two weeks before the Feb. 29 start of the spring practice session in which he was all but destined to claim the job of starter and make this team his.
LSU coaches can make him lose his breakfast or dinner from the night before, but they have yet to solve how to separate him from whatever kryptonite affects his sense of time and responsibility.

Late for one meeting or class or workout is a mistake. Late — or a no-show — on multiple occasions, after weeks of weeks of punishing running, is a pattern.
The kind of leader coaches and teammates want on a team coming off one national championship and aspiring to another understands the importance of team rules.

If you live 30 minutes from campus, don’t wait until 15 minutes before class to get out of bed.
If you’re late for a team meeting, don’t make it worse by not showing up at all.
If 104 of 105 players follow the rules, and the exception is the quarterback, inevitably there will be tugging in two directions or perhaps there will be two sets of standards.
Or both.

Perrilloux is a charmer. He can look you in the eye under an achingly blue sky and have you believe it’s green — even when you know better.
That kind of charisma can travel far with his kind of athletic ability, but when it remains self-satisfying and not team-oriented it takes on a divisive tenor.

If Miles decides to suspend Perrilloux permanently from the roster, it will be a bit like LSU’s dismissal of John Brady as basketball coach: a big pile of straws rather than one big, final straw.
Among the questions they are asking behind closed doors at LSU is whether the Tigers can depend upon their problematic quarterback.

When federal authorities questioned Perrilloux in connection with a counterfeiting investigation, LSU was in its offseason program.When Miles suspended him May 22, spring practice for 2007 was finished.
When Miles suspended him in October after the fight at the Varsity, it was during the wee hours of a Friday before an open date on the schedule.

This suspension comes days before, but not during, spring practice.
What would LSU do if it commits to Perrilloux as the No. 1 quarterback, only to learn of another violation of team rules on a Thursday night before an SEC game?

What is there in the look in Perrilloux’s eyes and in his words this time that should convince Miles he’s finally learned his lesson and can manage his time like an adult and a team leader?
Quarterback is a position of judgment, of decisions. Can Perrilloux persuade Miles and his staff they can trust him to make decisions that are best for team unity and morale, that he will no longer be his own banana peel?
You wonder how long the leadership among players will wonder whether their richly talented quarterback is worth the problems and the distraction he’s become.

You want to ask Miles if he understands his approach with Perrilloux isn’t working — not enough, anyway — but you can almost feel the coach seething in private.
He knows. The problem is, how do you break someone who feels like Superman?

It has always been bad news for other teams that Perrilloux seems unfazed and unbreakable by any manner of adversity, but we seem to be fast approaching the point when the coin flips and lands on the other side.