I watched the game again in the afternoon when there was no other SEC game on.  Like most people, when I watch the game live, I follow the ball.  When I watch the game on replay, I focus on other things.  In particular, when LSU had the ball, I focused on right tackle Joseph Barksdale, who was making his first start.

Barksdale had an OK game overall, but I was looking for details.  When LSU passed, Barksdale always took out his man.  The right defensive end never got a hand on LSU's quarterbacks.  He was excellent in pass blocking, and a big upgrade over last year's right tackle Carnell Stewart, who was at times awful in pass protection.

On running plays, however, Barksdale sometimes struggled.  In particular, he struggled when the play called for him to block on the second level.  He blocked someone on top of him pretty easily, and did a fine job of it, but he had a hard time getting away from the line of scrimmage and catching someone to hit him.  Sometimes, he looked a little lost out there when he was called upon to do that.  In particular, the option run to Keiland Williams on the goal line in the first half that ended up losing yards was blown up in part because Barksdale didn't get a good block.*

In a zone blocking scheme, the hardest part of a lineman's game is trying to figure out where to go and who to block when there isn't someone directly over him.  The lineman has to either help on one of his flanks or go to the next level and find someone to hit, but he better not block in the back.  There are lots of reads involved, and the process seems to take some practice.  This was Barksdale's first time getting a lot of plays against live competition other than in practice.  Hopefully he will improve that facet of his game as the season presses on.  

Either way, I do not believe Barksdale will be an improvement over Stewart in run blocking.  Stewart was a spectacular run blocker, and he rarely got credit for it.  Many of those great Hester power runs were run to the right side of the field behind Carnell Stewart.  Not to the left side behind Herman Johnson and Ciron Black.  Of course, Stewart had plenty of deficiencies, which have been well-chronicled, but we will lose something not having his run blocking out there.

Barksdale is already a very big upgrade over Stewart in the passing game.

When LSU did not have the ball, I tried to focus on the coverage and the secondary, which is understandably difficult because you can rarely see all the DBs on the screen.  Even worse, I usually could not identify the players who were in position, so I often couldn't tell who was being covered by a corner and who was being covered by a safety.  

To the extent I could tell who was covering whom, I report the following observations:

• When 3 or more receivers were in the game (which was most plays), they really changed up who was covering the slot and who was covering the outside.  Sometimes the corner would cover the outside (which is the traditional way to align your secondary when there are multiple receivers on one side), and sometimes the corner would cover the inside and a safety would go to the outside receiver.  This is an innovation in defensive strategy designed to cross up spread offenses that are trying to isolate the team's best wide receiver on the inside against an overmatched safety.  Slide the safety outside sometimes and the mismatch is not nearly as predictable.
• Jai Eugene played pretty well as the starting right corner.  His struggles last year in a backup role were often discussed, but his supposed offseason dedication to improving his play seems to have reaped some early dividends.  He looked comfortable and looked pretty good, at least at this level of competition.
• The corners changed up their coverage frequently.  Sometimes they played soft, and sometimes they pressed.  Jai Eugene pressed more frequently than Hawkins did, to my observation.
• I saw the following DBs get into the game:  Jai Eugene, Chris Hawkins, Curtis Taylor, Harry Coleman, Chad Jones, Danny McCray, Patrick Peterson, Ron Brooks, Phelon Jones.  I did not see Brandon Taylor, Stefon Francois, or Karnell Hatcher, but I can't swear they weren't out there.  Like I said, it was very hard to get jersey numbers off the TV on the wide angles that showed the DBs.
• Peterson looked comfortable as a true freshman playing his first game, but perhaps I hyped him up a little too much.  Sure, he looked fine, but I think I forgot he's human rather than an alien.

*There were other reasons that play didn't work, and most of them involved Appalachian State simply not being fooled and playing it very well.  One Mountaineer came through the line and took out Quinn Johnson, the lead blocker.  Another Mountaineer threatened Hatch and forced an early pitch, and yet more Mountaineers swarmed to the ball.  Keiland is getting some criticism for his play in this game, and rightly so, but Tony Dorsett wouldn't have been able to get that play into the end zone.

I usually don't talk about articles found on premium websites here, but I think this one will be OK.  Radio personality and Tigerbait writer Charles Hanagriff has written something that has had me thinking for about 24 hours, ever since I read it.  If he's right, we have all missed something very important about how this defense will arrange its personnel and put together its defensive packages.

I think LSU's nickel, dime, and quarter (seven defensive backs) packages will really see a large rotation of players, designed for matchup advantages.

Harry Coleman, for example, might play in base and dime, but not nickel. Patrick Peterson might be a nickel or dime replacement for Danny McCray against certain groupings. Chad Jones may not be listed as a base starter, but might never come off the field.

The Tigers could put four corners or four safeties out in the dime and quarter groups, depending on what they're lining up against. McCray, who was put in some very difficult situations that were not all his fault last season, will be in more natural positions, like he was against Ohio State.

Part of a much longer article.

First of all, "quarter package"?  If this is real, and if it's more than a special package for when we're winning by 5 with 2 seconds to play and the ball on the far side of the 50 yard line, it's entirely new to me.  Perhaps this is the plan for dealing with spread offenses?  Have more defensive backs on the field.

It's an idea that is worth thinking about.  Who comes off the field?  I guess 2 linebackers and a defensive tackle, but I don't know that.  As offenses innovate and spread teams out, defenses have to innovate too to compensate.  Maybe this is what we've come up with to respond to faster, more spread-out teams.

Second, Harry Coleman may be listed as a starter, but if he comes out in nickel, he may not play all that much.  If the base defense has the 3 linebackers with Coleman and Taylor at safety, then I guess nickel has the two linebackers (Beckwith and Perry/Sheppard) along with Taylor, McCray, and Jones.  Or perhaps Taylor, Jones, and Peterson.  Could Taylor be rotated out too in some packages? Jones may never leave the field, so who's going to be out when he's in?  

But then why bring Coleman back in for dime?  

I really like the idea of putting McCray in more positions to succeed.  He was really asked to do things that he was not well-suited for last year.  I think his confidence ended up pretty shattered at one point as well.  By the end, he wasn't even blitzing effectively.  Let's hope this situation works out well for him.  We tend to forget that McCray is only a 3rd year junior.  He was still a young guy last year.

Four corners?  We never had more than 2 on the field last year.  Four safeties?  How many defensive backs are going to be part of this rotation?

If Hanagriff is right about all this, then this defense will be sophisticated, and we don't understand the half of it yet.

Far be it for me to give Hanagriff advice about writing, but talk about burying the lede.  This part of this one article alone is worth the price of admission to get on Tigerbait for this month.  This is the most important thing I've read in weeks, and it comes in the bottom 1/4 of a long article.  It's almost an afterthought.