Trivia buffs might note that Saturday in Tiger Stadium was the first time LSU had scored on its first play from scrimmage since 2010 against Tennessee.

Quarterback Jordan Jefferson ran 83 untouched yards on that day’s first play, but in that instance the Tigers did not score another touchdown until, well, until after the game was over.

Or at least not until after Tennessee thought it was over, including the 12 or 13 Volunteers (accounts vary) who were on the field for what would have been the last play of a confusing game.

Surely you remember.

However many Tennessee defenders were involved, it was too many, and the penalty allowed LSU to get a lagniappe untimed down for Steven Ridley to score the winning touchdown on a play that began and ended with the clock beaming 0:00, and with Les Miles grinning like he’d slipped the entire Vol Nation a hot foot.

So on that bizarre day the Tigers went 59 minutes, 42 seconds and some loose change without scoring a touchdown in a 16-14 victory.

Maybe you had to be there. I know my idea of football has never been the same since.

Anyway, this latest opening quick strike Saturday night — freshman Caden Durham’s 71-yard sprint after a short swing pass on LSU’s first play — was a prelude to no such foolishness as the Tigers beat South Alabama 42-10.

This one took. There was no fall-off, no gap.

In fact, after LSU forced a punt, the very next play Durham rumbled 86 more yards, straight up the middle, to the 1-yard line and Garrett Nussmeier scored on the next play with a quarterback sneak.

“He ran fast,” LSU head coach Brian Kelly said as a simple explanation for Durham’s exploits. “God-given ability. He just runs away from everybody.”

Three plays, 158 yards, two touchdowns is pretty efficient use of offense.

Overkill, perhaps, but it let Kelly check off at least one box on the game’s to-do list — namely, a quicker opening for the notoriously slow-starting Tigers.

And it got better, if at a somewhat slower pace.

With Durham rushing for 128 yards on seven carries and Nussmeier scoring twice when he wasn’t throwing for a career-high 409 yards, LSU routinely scored on its first four possessions and five of the first six and led 35-3 at the half.

For a while it looked as if the Tigers were intent on scoring enough points to even the score for Louisiana over the 87 big ones South Alabama put on Northwestern State a couple of weeks ago.

A sloppy, somewhat disinterested third quarter put the kibosh on that notion and

the Tigers seemed content to run the clock in the fourth quarter.

But the game was exactly what LSU needed in advance of this week’s open date before the Southeastern Conference schedule resumes in earnest.

True, South Alabama will never be confused with an SEC team. Then again, neither would Nicholls State, and the Colonels hung around far too long into the third quarter a few weeks ago.

Still, LSU’s offense hasn’t been a big problem. The Tigers can score some points — and the curiously suspect running game took some encouraging strides with Durham the bell cow for the team’s 238 yards on the ground.

It’s been that defense that has had the Tigers cringing about with some of the best SEC offenses yet to come.

That was probably the story of this game.

It was South Alabama, OK, granted. So you have to grade on a Sun Belt curve.

Maybe LSU just did what it should have done to an outmanned opponent. Yet it was still the first of these tune-up games that didn’t leave lingering questions.

The Jaguars had an interesting offense, well designed and executed to get their skill players into space — the kind of antics that have plagued the Tigers’ defense.

Too often, perhaps, LSU defenders seemed to be chasing Jaguars rather than attacking them. For the most the part they could catch the Jaguars, you just have to wonder what happens with SEC athletes doing the same.

But that defense held up pretty well, passing their first test without star linebacker Harold Perkins since his season-ending injury against UCLA on Sept. 21.

It was hardly dominating, more bend-but-don’t-break while giving up 333 yards but only 10 points.

The highlight was the goal-line stand late in the third quarter when on fourth down USA’s Gio Lopez thought he spotted an opening, only to be thwarted by a quick reaction from Major Burns and Whit Weeks for a collision that sent the quarterback’s helmet into lunar orbit.

The offense then showed off with a 12-play, 99-yard scoring drive that gained 119 yards with a pair of penalties factored in.

All in all, a good night — even the weather cooperated to make up for the previous week’s broiler pit.

“Bottom line: we’ve gotten better over the last five weeks,” Kelly said. “That’s what we needed going into this off week.”

That’s about all he could ask.

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Scooter Hobbs covers LSU athletics. Email him at scooter.hobbs@americanpress.com