BATON ROUGE — News of Harold Perkins' injury he suffered during LSU football's 34-17 win over UCLA on Saturday night at Tiger Stadium was a season-ending one surfaced Sunday night.

Following tests, LSU's worst nightmare was confirmed that Perkins tore his ACL in his right knee, forcing him to miss the remainder of the 2024 season for the No. 13 Tigers (3-1).

LSU coach Brian Kelly confirmed reports of Perkins' injury and status moving forward to reporters during his weekly Monday news conference.

"The injury to Harold Perkins looks to be a significant injury," Kelly said Monday. "It looks to be an ACL tear. We're not certain about specifics for surgery yet. There are details we can't get into right now. We feel terrible for Harold because of the work he's put himself in a great position.

"When you lose players you feel terrible. But someone will have to step up. The next man will rally and put us in position to have success."

MASON TAYLOR How Mason Taylor has become LSU football's 'safety valve'

GRADING LSU'S WIN OVER UCLA LSU football loses Harold Perkins but handled UCLA. How we graded the Tigers' win.

Losing Perkins is devastating for the Tigers defense, which already lost senior experienced defensive tackle Jacobian Guillory for the season with an Achilles tear. Perkins was a preseason All-SEC selection by the league's coaches and media and he's the top NFL prospect on that side of the ball for LSU. He's projected as an early round draft choice in this April's NFL draft.

With the Tigers leading the Bruins 31-17 in the middle of the fourth quarter, Perkins went down after a tackle attempt with what appeared to be a lower right leg injury.

Perkins remained down on the field for a couple of minutes, being worked on by a number of team trainers. He was helped up and assisted to the sideline where he was immediately ushered into the medical tent.

Shortly thereafter, Perkins left the sideline and headed back to the team's locker room.

Before leaving with the injury, Perkins recorded two tackles for the Tigers. On the season, Perkins has 17 stops, with 1.5 tackles-for-loss on the 2024 season. He has 147 tackles, 13 sacks, two interceptions and seven forced fumbles so far throughout his LSU career.

"He carries an immediate — you got to pay attention to him from an offensive standpoint.. He can wreck your day," Kelly said of what LSU is losing without Perkins. "You lose that piece right away. Our players clearly understand that in this game, you're going to get injuries. Harold was gifted enough to play a receiver both as a linebacker and a nickel. We don't have many of those guys hanging around."

Kelly said that LSU has enough versatility on its roster that its defensive structures will not have to change much without Perkins on the field for the Tigers.

"Harold is a great player but it takes 10 other guys to make that thing happen. If we want to play with three linebackers on the field, Whit Weeks will slide over and play the Sam position, West Weeks would move to the Mike and Greg Penn would move to the Will. So our Buffalo package is still in tact," Kelly said. "And we would active Xavier Atkins to be the next Will.

"We could also go back to a star position with Major Burns, who would be backed up by Kylin Jackson. So that's another look that we have. We have versatility to be in either one of those defensive structures."

LSU FOOTBALL IN RANKINGS Updating LSU rankings in college football polls after UCLA win in Week 4

LSU IN TROUBLE WIHTOUT HAROLD PERKINS? Updating LSU rankings in college football polls after UCLA win in Week 4

Cory Diaz covers the LSU Tigers for The Daily Advertiser as part of the USA TODAY Network. Follow his Tigers coverage on Twitter: @ByCoryDiaz. Got questions regarding LSU athletics? Send them to Cory Diaz at bdiaz@gannett.com.

This article originally appeared on Lafayette Daily Advertiser: What Brian Kelly said about Harold Perkins' season-ending ACL injury