It happened seemingly in slow motion.

LSU watched as USC marched down the field for an eight-play, 75-yard drive that gave the Trojans the win and redemption.

Redemption that could’ve been LSU’s.

Both teams were coming off disappointing seasons where offenses led by generational quarterbacks were handicapped by porous defenses. Both teams came into the new season thinking that dynamic would change.

“We’re sitting here again talking about the same things,” head coach Brian Kelly said. “It’s unacceptable for us not to have found a way to win this football game. It’s ridiculous.”

In the end, it was USC whose offseason optimism was vindicated with a 27-20 win in Las Vegas.

LSU’s defense, stocked with an all-new coaching staff over the offseason, was confident that it would be more competitive this year after looking routinely lost in 2023.

LSU’s secondary, which was often at the forefront of the Tigers’ historic defensive struggles last season, made many familiar mistakes.

Defensive backs missed tackles, were caught helpless with the ball in the air, were slow to react to plays to the outside and were blown by because of poor footwork.

USC quarterback Miller Moss completed 75% of his passes for 378 yards on 14 yards per completion. He had no trouble finding open receivers for big gains, especially on the game-winning drive that sealed the win for USC.

“We put way too much pressure on our defense to be something that they’re not ready to be,” Kelly said. “They battled, but we have warts, and they’re not going away overnight.”

It was, in many ways, the same old story.

However, there were moments when it seemed that things might be different.

On third and goal in the first half, sophomore cornerback Ashton Stamps made a crucial pass breakup. Despite being initially boxed out for the ball, he kept swiping at it even while off-balance and forced an incompletion. USC settled for a field goal.

It was the kind of heady play in one-on-one coverage that was seldom made by LSU last year. In fact, you could probably count those plays on one hand.

In the second half, LSU made more of those plays. Stamps and sophomore safety Jordan Allen each blew up screen plays, reacting quickly to get to the outside, unlike in the first half and unlike last year.

Freshman cornerback PJ Woodland came up with a physical pass breakup on a drive that ended in LSU holding USC to a field goal.

LSU’s front seven was also consistently impactful, hurrying Moss and coming up with two sacks and three batted balls at the line of scrimmage. Last season, the Tigers struggled to consistently create pressure.

It’d be hard to claim that LSU’s defense wasn’t more competitive Sunday than it was in most of its games last year, where 40-point opposing outputs weren’t uncommon.

“It’s a cohesive, connected group that plays hard,” Kelly said. “They played really, really hard.”

But in falling just short, the improvements of LSU’s defense may well be washed away.

By failing to seal the deal, the Tigers have yet to exorcise last year’s demons. The defense’s lingering reputation will still hang over its head.

Stunningly, LSU was tripped up in ways that the team had come to take for granted.

The offense became pedestrian in the second half, coming up with only seven first downs. That included settling for a field goal that merely tied the game on its penultimate drive, where the team was remarkably sloppy once it reached the red zone.

LSU was also uncharacteristically undisciplined, being whistled for 10 penalties for 99 yards, including two unsportsmanlike conduct penalties.

The most costly call was a targeting penalty on redshirt junior safety Jardin Gilbert that added onto a 20-yard pass for USC on its game-winning drive. It put USC comfortably in field goal range, essentially sealing a Trojan victory.

All of those issues, however, are ones the coaching staff is likely confident it can fix. They’re anomalies: the LSU teams of the past under Kelly haven’t had those problems.

The defense, though, missed a valuable opportunity to face its criticisms head on and put them to bed. With a strong performance in game one, the LSU defense would finally have turned the page and earned its redemption.

Instead, LSU is forced to wait another week, go back to the drawing board and grapple with another missed opportunity to right the ship.

“Work ain’t done yet,” junior linebacker Harold Perkins Jr. said. “It’s still Week 1. We got a long ways to go.”

This story will be updated with quotes.