BATON ROUGE — Whenever teams scrimmage against themselves, it's nearly impossible for head coaches to leave it fully happy. LSU football conducted its first fall camp scrimmage under Lane Kiffin on Saturday, Aug. 15 inside Tiger Stadium. It was the Tigers' 10th practice of the preseason and it featured 170 total plays. Kiffin broke down what he saw at LSU's first scrimmage with media members following the team's 11th fall camp practice Monday morning. For the coaching staff, plenty of evaluation came out of it while there were some highlight plays and performances. LSU IN PRESEASON RANKINGS Where did LSU football land in latest preseason poll? "I thought the first defense played extremely well." Kiffin said. "Gave the offense a lot of pressure and really good in coverage. So that was great to see. Obviously, anytime in scrimmages, you know, both sides are never going to look really good. And so, first offense struggled for a while then came back and played well later, which is what you hope for. "There were a lot of good things to evaluate. We played for a long time, I think 170 total plays, so that was really good to see to get a lot of information on our guys and half of it was tackling. That helped us on some evals, too." Kiffin noted there's still progress to be made among some of the primary backups at positions so there can be more rotation. He didn't specify which units.
On the positive side, sophomore running back Harlem Berry had a good day at the scrimmage, highlighted by breaking a long touchdown run, and quarterback Sam Leavitt started off slow before finishing the practice strong. "We got to remember Harlem is young. I think he's starting to run the ball more physical," Kiffin said. "He has some good runs, had a good long touchdown run Saturday. So I'm very excited about there he can get to." For Leavitt, because of the pass rush and pressure LSU defensive coordinator Blake Baker's defense provided, he had to escape out of the pocket some and Kiffin said that the quarterback, who's making his way back from foot surgery, shined in those moments. "We knew what an athlete he was, especially with two years on film, but he moves around great. Got out a lot of trouble with some great pass rush and great pressure that came at him, some that came free Saturday," Kiffin said. 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 stood out during LSU football's first fall camp scrimmage?