After more than 25 years of writing about sports at home and away, sometimes I think we're all stumbling around in the dark in a strange hotel room, wishing we had a light source as we try to rediscover the layout and get our bearings.

Flip a switch and realize the few shapes created by a sliver of outside light turn out to have created the illusion of something different than what they appeared to be.

The paradox of sports in 2009 is at a time when we appear to have more information than ever about the teams we follow -- thanks to streaming video, blogs, databases, cable TV packages and many other sources -- most teams and their coaches are more secretive and guarded than ever. "I'm honest when I say I am deceptive" is often the most candid we can expect.

Beyond that, we're on our own. Too many times, we build houses of understanding on sand, frameworks of premises on shaky foundations, and the elaborate structures we hammer together on top of them look pretty and true to our blueprint -- until they crumble.

These things happen more frequently than they did nearly two decades ago when Jim Mora, then coach of the New Orleans Saints, delivered a frank rebuke of someone whose question of Mora contained in its context an analytical premise the coach dismissed as way off the mark.

"You don't know when it's good or bad," Mora said. "You really don't know, because you don't know what we're trying to do. You guys don't look at the films. You don't know what happened. You really don't know. You think you know, but you don't know -- and you never will."

Then and now, and in the years in between, that quote rings true to me, and I suspect to many in my profession who wouldn't publicly admit it. Most of the time, shooting straight in the dark is the best we can hope for, confronting "I'm honest when I say I'm deceptive" with the best analysis we can muster with limited input.

Whose fault was the interception? To know that, it helps to know what the offense was trying to attack, where the receiver was supposed to run, how he was to adjust his route for Plan B, and where the quarterback expected him to be when he released the ball.

At times, it's a modest success to realize what you don't know, to understand when others don't know what they think they know, and to keep asking questions. The truth is usually hidden inside quick assumptions, buzzwords and easy conclusions.

These are my thoughts as I still ponder what went wrong with LSU's defense in 2008. It's a relevant topic as we all try to get a handle on what should be considered good and bad about the defense's performance in the Tigers' 31-23 victory Saturday at Washington.

I could jump on the bandwagon and bang the drum with the popular beat. I know the right words. Co-coordinators. Mallveto. Confusion. Read and react. Soft. Blitz more. Saban. Aggressive. Press man.

Trying to see through the looking glass from the other side, I let the hysteria of 2008 subside until I could talk with players and coaches, some still in the program, some no longer there, to get a read with dispassionate perspective.

I don't have all the answers. I have what I consider a better understanding than I had before 7-5 became 8-5 at the Chick-fil-A Bowl. I've decided it's a work in progress, just like everything these days, just like the 2009 defense.

Here is what I think: If you single out any one thing and pin LSU's defensive struggles on that one area, you're wrong. If you expand the list to the five most compelling reasons, the analysis is stronger but incomplete.

It's not that there were co-coordinators. All defensive staffs are collaborative efforts, some more than others, but with organizational charts that require cooperation.

LSU won a national championship with co-coordinators on defense. Their names were Nick Saban and Will Muschamp.

True, Saban was head coach, Muschamp was coordinator. True, almost everyone with an opinion would swear Muschamp was coordinator in name only.

Titles have their place on coaching staffs. Associate head coach. Co-coordinator. Often, these are perks of semantics, in lieu of a pay raise, or to justify one. They require no less collaboration than before, if not streamlining or clarifying of the chain of command.

In my list of buzzwords and catchphrases earlier, I omitted one that's instructive to bring out of hiding now.

One voice.

As in, "The defense needed one voice. Having one coordinator in charge will fix that problem."

Perhaps, but upon that foundation can rest uneasy the faulty premise that that's going to fix every problem.

What I've learned from more than 25 years of talking with coaches, at LSU and at other programs, is just how collaborative defensive staffs are. Coordinators whose egos don't need stroking freely admit their assistants play major roles in decision making and implementation, and these coordinators are content to refer to themselves by the more humble label of defense "callers."

They call the defense, because their must be one person to do so, but the coordination is exactly what is part and parcel of the word: cooperation, collaboration.

One voice? That was Les Miles. He made the decision in 2008 to continue the defensive approach of Bo Pelini, a defensive philosophy that was in place when LSU won the 2007 BCS national championship. It was a defensive approach that nonetheless showed vulnerabilities, exacerbated by defensive personnel, against the offensive revolution under way in college football.

Miles' coordinators found themselves coaching a defensive scheme they wouldn't have chosen if the decision had been theirs, and when the vulnerabilities revealed they had not gone away (but in some cases only the names had changed), Miles stepped in and got involved. In some cases, the coordinators were working with both hands tied behind their backs.

It was a no-win situation for them, and no win is how LSU emerged from five of the 12 games on its regular-season schedule.

Miles realized he had to fix the problem, a problem he created with the decisions he made after Pelini left for Nebraska. In the kinds of conversations that occur in private, the coordinators understood they should -- catchphrase alert -- pursue other opportunities.

It's not that there were co-coordinators. It's not that there were these two specific co-coordinators. It's that there were these two specific co-coordinators, using that style of defense, with those particular players, with one-on-one coverage weaknesses, with an underachieving line, with a linebacker corps in flux, with leadership inferior to that of 2007, with defenses still catching up to offenses, with a head coach who came of age in run-oriented football getting involved in the defense of a different age, with countless other things that went wrong.

And all the while, the 2003 BCS national championship defense remains held up as the shining example.

Except, that was another time, a time that's gone.

Matt Flynn's best two games, arguably, of the regular season during LSU's run toward the 2007 BCS national championship? They came against Alabama (Saban) and Auburn (Muschamp).

As a nod to my new friend Luke, please allow me this edit to clarify I'm talking about offensive production, which is often the centerpiece of these discussions we've been having about how effective defenses are. Flynn's only two 300-yard passing games in 2007 were against Alabama and Auburn, and in each of those games he threw a regular-season-high three touchdown passes.

Of course, most coaches measure defenses by how few points they allow. Remember Bob Stoops being defensive that an ABC announcer referred to LSU as having the No. 1 defense in 2003? Stoops pointed out the Sooners were No. 1 in total defense. LSU was No. 1 in sc