Sage Ryan Portalin’

addition by subtraction

he ain't going to another SEC level school

Bama lock

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Why would Bama take him?

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why would anybody take a man named Sage?

Ended up not living up to his ranking. A step slow in reading and reacting. Made a couple decent plays, but burnt most of the time.

Don’t think he’s an SEC take. Could go somewhere in the ACC or Big 12.

Possible G5 as well

he was a step or two behind every coverage play this year, he does not tackle well nor does he have great size or speed. He's kinda a tweener between a safety/Nickle

maybe better coaching will help? Several plays he was spinning in circles from being burnt so bad, extremely soft tackler

I was kidding, but the belief during his recruitment was that he was trending Bama late in the process. Ended up with LSU in the end

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Wasn’t he playing out of position? CB and not safety.

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He played nickel his first 2.5 seasons here, got moved to corner once we started having our corners drop like flies as this season went along.

He was better at corner than nickel and its not that close.

He's never lined up as a true safety.

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Not trolling, but honestly curious if Ryan and Perkins both looked worse than their talent level due to the struggles of LSU's defense as a whole? Maybe they didn't understand House's schemes, or were trying to overcompensate for other players around them missing assignments. Any LSU fan have thoughts?

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Perkins was amazing as a freshman in House's scheme then, they just moved him to a hybrid OLB/nickel role this season because at his size he was never going to be an EDGE pass rusher in the NFL. I get why they did it, but he was less effective overall in the college sense and really learning a lot of new things so it was a lot of acclimation for him, overall he still had a good year and really made a number of big plays for us, just didnt have that pass rush impact because he played coverage so much more.

Ryan's problem is he plays a bit soft, and just never lived up to his 5-star ranking. If he was a low 4-star or high 3-star I think people would have a different opinion on him because he played a lot the last 3 years, he just never showed 5-star traits here at all in terms of athleticism you expect. He'd probably be better off on offense someone which is where he played more in high school.

Like when Perkins is on the field he's clearly faster/more athletic than almost anyone near his size. He makes plays that are truly difficult to make. Ryan just never made those kind of plays by comparison, and seemed to be a step behind in many cases.

To Ryan's credit the move to corner out of necessity brought a bit extra out of him. He was certainly a better player there than ever at nickel previously. He just seemed to kind of exist at nickel/allowed a lot of catches and made a tackle, but at corner he actually made some plays which was nice to see.

Oh and the story as to why he hit the portal is pretty crazy. His dad and him apparently went to the staff and said they needed $200k in NIL and him to be used on offense/defense like Travis Hunter was at Colorado to stay at LSU. They got laughed out the room almost quite literally