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When the LSU football coaches settle into their seats for the plane ride home after a game, they fire up their laptops. At their disposal, edited to individual groups they coach, is the entire game they just played.

No waiting. Just watch, learn and grade.

It’s all part of a day’s work for LSU director of video Doug Aucoin and his staff, who take digital imagery to a different level.

For that matter, that’s every day. Because it’s not just after games that the coaches want video to break down. They do the same after every practice. So sophisticated is the LSU system that the indoor practice facility is set up with robotic cameras that feed video right into the editing suite in the adjacent building.

All of which makes it more amazing when Aucoin says, “It’s a far cry from when I came here 14 years ago and they didn’t have a computer in the football office. Seriously.”

Doug Aucoin, head of LSU’s video department, remotely adjusts cameras over the practice field from this control booth.

For what it’s worth, now the LSU coaches have two computers on each of their desks—one exclusively to watch video—and each was outfitted with an iPad this past summer. Gerry DiNardo may have said it best when he was LSU’s head football coach in the 1990s: that the battle among top-level football schools for facilities and amenities was an arms race.

Trust that LSU is on the cutting edge when it comes to video and its associated technologies. That’s one reason Aucoin was named last year’s Bob Matey National Video Coordinator of the Year by the Collegiate Sports Video Association.

“Doug is one of those behind-the-scenes guys that plays a huge role in the success of our program,” LSU coach Les Miles says.

“Doug’s progressive thinking has helped us revolutionize the way we scout both our team and our opponents from a video standpoint. There’s no doubt he’s one of the best in the nation, and we are lucky to have him at LSU.”

When LSU plays on the road, Aucoin and assistant Brad Mendow are joined by four student interns. They take along five video cameras and various remote editing computers.

That’s not only a far cry from the LSU of 14 years ago, but also the New Orleans Saints from the old days, because Aucoin was bred to have his job.

His dad, Erby, was the first full-time film director in the NFL, leading that operation for the Saints from their inception until 1986. Another son, Albert took over when he retired. Doug’s other brother, also Erby, worked for their dad.

And young Doug, just 14, went to training camp in Vero Beach, Fla., with the Saints to do his part. So when he graduated from high school at 17 in 1987, he went to work full-time for the Saints, attending and graduating from UNO at the same time.

It was an exciting time, because the NFL was making the switch from film to video.

“But I really didn’t think I was going to stay in this business,” Aucoin says, figuring he’d take advantage of his business administration degree.

When he graduated at 22, however, Tulane offered him the job of running its video department.

Five years later, DiNardo hired him at LSU, and he’s never looked back, making the move from video to digital. Tape is a thing of the past.

Students help tape, edit and prepare videos for the coaches and players.

“The technology’s changing so fast,” Aucoin says, “you just try to keep up.”

Actually, Aucoin and staff are on the cutting edge, having been one of just a handful of schools to work with, develop and fine-tune the XOS video-editing system used by coaching staffs nationwide.

It’s all about getting an edge in coaching and recruiting. LSU has more video on opponents than the average person could fathom.

Understand that not all football coaches are technically savvy. Alabama coach Nick Saban, for example, went kicking and screaming into the digital age, but, he now uses it to his advantage in every possible way. Miles embraces the technology and wants to be on the front end.

“He understands how it makes you more efficient,” Aucoin says. “That’s why we’ve got these iPads. He’s thinking aggressively. (With the iPads) we can create presentations for recruiting and load them on there and have an advantage.”

Not everyone on staff is a computer whiz. That’s why Aucoin loves this story:

“The first thing you typically will check when a coach calls you in for a problem is to make sure it’s plugged in, and then make sure the power button is on.

“This happens often. They’ll call me into the staff room because there’s a problem. Coach Miles will call me and say, ‘Hey, this thing’s not working.’ And I can typically walk up to the computer or the touch screen and push one button and it’s fixed and I walk out.

“And as I walk out the door he’ll yell to me, ‘Hey, hey, what did you do?’

“And I respond with, ‘I can’t tell you. That’s job security.’ And I walk out of the room.”