During the month of practice leading up to the BCS Championship, Perrilloux said Miles and Gary Crowton, who was in his first season as LSU's offensive coordinator, installed a 15-20 play spread package for Perrilloux, and Crowton told the press he expected Perrilloux to take about 10 snaps, perhaps even as many as 15. In the opening of FOX's BCS National Championship pregame show, as a split screen showed both Flynn and Perrilloux warming up, host Chris Rose referred to LSU as a "two-headed quarterback."
On Jan. 7, 2008 at the Superdome in New Orleans — a half hour southeast of the little yellow house on Bluebird Street — LSU beat Ohio State 38-24 in the BCS Championship game. The Tigers were national champions.
<q>"He cried that night. I had never seen him cry like that before."</q>
Perrilloux, the SEC Championship Game MVP a month earlier, played two snaps. Early in the second quarter, he pitched left to Keiland Williams on an option. And in the third quarter, he kept the ball and ran for 4 yards on another option. That was it. Two plays. "The promises that he would play," Perrilloux's mom said. "He played for like a second, and he cried that night. I had never seen him cry like that before."
This is where we learn Perrilloux, as a young teenager, can have a bullet run its way through his body, and he doesn't cry. But now as a young adult, he plays for "only a second" in a football game.
And he cries.
* * *
Perrilloux was disappearing, and fast. He now believes Miles misled him to convince him to choose LSU over Texas.
"Basically, what they're telling me is the quarterback situation is slim. JaMarcus struggled and you'll have a great opportunity to come in here and play." Perrilloux said. "I got in there, and it wasn't that. ‘Cause when I got here I never had an opportunity. I was on the scout team for two years. They didn't treat me like I was the No. 1 recruit in the country. They treated me like a guy they signed to see if he could play or not."