101 Days of BC Football: Kevin Pierre-Louis, #24
By Joe Micik
Here’s a question to consider: With the departure of Luke Kuechly for the NFL, who is the best player on the Boston College Eagles football team? As it turns out, it may be the guy who lined up next to him.
BC’s starting Will linebacker, Kevin Pierre-Louis, is not Luke Kuechly on the field, but he’s the next best thing that we have, and if certain preseason evaluations are to be believed, he might be our best player right now. Specifically, we’re talking about Phil Steele’s All-ACC Preseason team where Pierre-Louis (“KPL”) was the only Eagle to make the first team.
Pierre-Louis had a solid sophomore year, coming in second on the team with 74 tackles (and nobody had a prayer of coming close to Kuechly’s 191), with six for a loss, while also boasting four passes broken up, a hit on the quarterback, and a 96-yard fumble recovery for a touchdown (against UMass) in just nine games played. Unfortunately, though he performed well, he did not even receive an honorable mention when the All-ACC team was announced. Only Kuechly made that list, which may also have something to do with the poor season BC had in 2011.
In spring ball, he missed the early scrimmage but otherwise there are no health issues with him to report; all systems appear to be go for KPL in September.
Boston College lost a player in the linebacking corps who was legitimately one of the best defenders in the country. Pierre-Louis is the most likely candidate to step up, because someone has to make up those tackles. Now, it would be foolish to expect KPL to completely pick up the slack, but he has every opportunity to put over 100 tackles on the stat sheet by the time the year is over.
We know there’s talent at linebacker with KPL leading the way. With Kuechly no longer soaking up tackles at an extraordinary rate, this is his time to shine and lead the Boston College defense as we all know he can.
Mildly interesting side note: KPL is one of two college football players named “Kevin Pierre-Louis;” the other also plays defense, but for Colorado State. He is also originally from the tri-state area.