It’s a blind date starring… LSU and Texas A&M?

Published 9:35 am Wednesday, November 26, 2014

When it comes to dealing with LSU football, the SEC office is like your best buddy’s well-meaning girlfriend.

You know the type. Nice girl. Good to him. Makes him happy. Tolerates you, too, probably more than she should. But also the one who won’t sleep until every rock is uncovered, every avenue is exhausted, every “Oh, look who it is” has been accidentally arranged just to make sure you, too, have a “significant other” whether you want one or not.

And she sure seems to have lots of friends.

LSU, it seems, has always been content to play the field, and what a big pond it is in the SEC.

Still, the SEC seems obsessed with fixing the Tigers up for life, to have and to hold, to hate and to despise until death do they part.

It’s a never-ending, thankless chore.

Note: At the risk of being overtly sexist here, and strictly under the written, nonbinding terms of this discussion, we are going to refer to the LSU football team in terms of the “male” human for this exercise.

But the SEC has gone to meddling with LSU’s rivalry life again, totally convinced that it can find just the right partner, preferably in time for the holidays when all the other hated rivals are having so much fun and angst.

The light bulbs went off, and the SEC had Texas A&M in mind for LSU the minute the Aggies moved into the neighborhood.

And in some ways it does seem like a natural hatred, full of suspicion and mistrust, made in heaven.

But we’ll see. The Tigers have resisted the SEC’s best efforts before.

LSU will always have hateful eyes for Alabama, and would love to have the Tide return the favor.

And although Alabama certainly respects LSU “as a friend,” the Tide will always reserve most of its spite and all of its Spike 80DF herbicide for Auburn.

This year’s Ole Miss affair — the nervous build up as well as the game — proved there might be some life in that old rivalry. All it takes is for the Rebels to get good enough to pay attention to, and all of sudden the Tigers perk up and make sure they’re wearing a clean shirt for the meeting, maybe even splash on some Old Spice.

But, much like Alabama, Ole Miss is probably far more concerned with fighting off the annoying Cowbell attacks in its own backyard all year.

That’s the problem when you don’t have a natural rival in your own state.

Once those many moons back in lore, the Tigers had Tulane. But the magic wore off of that so long ago they don’t even talk to or think about each other any more.

And then there was Arkansas.

The meddling SEC office had such high hopes.

It looked doable, too.

It was scheduled as a rivalry game — Thanksgiving weekend, usually on Black Friday — and there was no shortage of great and memorable games, probably as many as any of the true rivals.

But somehow, hard as they may fight and as much as might be at stake, there never developed the true “chemistry” or “feel” of hated rivals.

More like relatives your mom insisted you had to visit for Thanksgiving.

Somehow it seemed one or the other was as often playing with a lame duck coach as they were with anything tangible on the line.

So now it’s the Aggies.

I have to say that it at least has a chance — maybe the not 365-day-a-year obsession like the in-state bickering, but real potential.

I mean, it wasn’t like this thing was a blind date.

They have a history, a long history, at that. For whatever reason, it always seemed to fizzle every time it looked like something or another might be about to come of it.

So, in a way, they’re trying again.

And the SEC is using the media as that reluctant go-between to “call him and see what he thought about her, how it went.”

Both coaches got asked about it this week.

“Any time you move a game to the end of the year I think you’re insinuating something, particularly on Thanksgiving,” Texas A&M coach Kevin Sumlin said. “We’ll see.”

And LSU’s Les Miles added that “When I came to school here I was told that this is absolutely a rivalry game, and I understand that.”

I don’t.

When Miles came to LSU 10 years ago, Texas A&M wasn’t even on LSU’s (or the SEC match-makers’) radar. But it makes for a good story.

“We needed to do everything we can could to uphold the rivalry,” Miles added.

OK. If nothing else, the whole “Howdy” thing with the Aggies has to make LSU and its “Tiger Bait!” preference very uncomfortable.

But it does have a chance. LSU and Arkansas somehow never even seemed like bordering states.

Texas A&M and LSU do often recruit head-to-head, but that’s really of any interest to the recruiting geeks.

If any fan is watching a pivotal third-and-2 worrying about what effect the play might have on that 5-star defensive end in Waxahachie, he really needs to get a new hobby.

But familiarity could be a plus.

There’s the Houston battleground, of course, an Aggie stronghold where LSU also seems to export most of its alumni.

And there’s no shortage of Aggies in Louisiana, certainly not in our immediate precincts.

All Howdy-ness aside, that can breed just the kind of uneasiness you need for a true rivalry.

But we’ll have to see.

I would only suggest that this newest couple learn from LSU’s past mistakes.

The Aggies may have noticed that when Arkansas beat LSU two weeks ago, the Razorbacks stampeded after the “The Boot” like they’d won one of those 60-second grocery shopping sprees.

Pay them no heed. They were just acting the fool.

There’s no need to spice up LSU-Texas A&M with a force-fed trophy. In fact, in some ways “The Boot” kept LSU-Arkansas from begin taken seriously.

If you don’t have some ol’ bucket or trinket that dates back to Prohibition, trying to force a new, politically-correct one on the fan bases only cheapens the relationship for both sides.

You’re both better than that.

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Scooter Hobbs covers LSU sports. Email him at shobbs@americanpress.com(MGNonline)