No shortage of intangibles in this series

Published 7:31 am Friday, September 23, 2016

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">With no earthquakes, barn fires, rabid frogs or other biblical plagues in the immediate forecast — although with LSU-Auburn it’s always prudent to keep your eyes open — there would appear to be a chance that just a football game is at stake Saturday night on the Plains.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">The two teams, after all, have made it through several years now playing without FEMA’s interventions.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">Ah, but in the SEC it can never be that simple.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">Games must be analyzed with a keen eye, mostly toward the intangibles.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">And, in this case, it appears they might have to bring in an outside arbitrator for some of this stuff.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">Mainly some pretty wise minds — which is to say smarter than me, and possibly you too — have dubbed Saturday’s affair the “Hot Seat Bowl,” with some even providing the handy subtitle of “Loser Leaves Town.”</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">That seems a little harsh for the season’s fourth weekend, and I’m pretty sure LSU’s Les Miles doesn’t plan to stick around Auburn for very long regardless of the outcome. LSU charters big jet airplanes just for this purpose.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">But there’s no denying that both Miles and Auburn’s Gus Malzahn are feeling some heat.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">Malzahn is 1-2 this year without leaving Jordan-Hare Stadium and he coaches at a school with a notoriously quick trigger on these matters.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">Miles is 2-1 at a school whose fan base expects four-quarter perfection, but whose administration is notoriously awkward when it comes to firing anybody.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">Advantage? Who knows?</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">Generally when dealing with a bona fide hot-seat game, whatever effect it has on the outcome itself comes down to how much the players are invested in the head honcho, how much they really care what happens to him.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">It’s tough to get a read on the Auburn side. It’s not like the players are going to call a news conference to rip the head coach.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">The athletic director, Jay Jacobs, did however say this week that “We have to stop losing games we should win.”</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">LSU is 3</span><span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">1</span><span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">⁄</span><span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">2</span><span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">-point favorite, even at Auburn, so it’s hard to say if that statement is in play this week, or even if it was a threat to excite the troops.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">But we do know with Miles that the LSU players will do anything for him, perhaps even run through a wall. There’s history. Remember, they had a trial run for this sort of thing last November and in that dress rehearsal they did at least rally around the guy. It was pretty heartwarming, in fact, even if they didn’t play noticeably better.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">LSU’s athletic director, Joe Alleva, doesn’t really ever say anything on the record.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">So who knows which team has the edge here? Although it would appear that Auburn’s backs are more against the wall than LSU’s.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">The revenge factor is even more of a puzzle, thanks to a fast one by LSU.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">At a glance, Auburn holds all the revenge cards, thanks to last year’s worse-than-the-final 45-21 LSU rout in Baton Rouge.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">It was one of Auburn’s most embarrassing losses in memory.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">It was the game that, for a brief time, made Leonard Fournette the odds-on choice to win the Heisman Trophy. Even without playing the fourth quarter, he gained 228 yards, mostly slinging helpless Auburn defenders to and fro.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">It was one big highlight film for No. 7, with much of the evidence still getting wide play whenever Fournette’s name comes up on ESPN, which if often.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">In particular, safety Tray Matthews must be sick of seeing that play in what he called a “business decision” to take a half-hearted stab high on the big back ended with him being flung into the cheap seats while Fournette trotted merrily along his way.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">Matthews is back and says the wounded shoulder that led to his business decision is all better.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">That would seem a pretty cut-and-dry Auburn advantage.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">Yet LSU is trying to dredge up memories of its last trip to Auburn. It is a veteran enough team, apparently, that many have vivid nightmares of a 41-7 laugher.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">Did not last year’s game avenge that?</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">We shall see.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">Most will recall that the disaster was Brandon Harris’ first-ever start at quarterback, and it did not go well.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">But he can hardly play the Matthews role for whatever redemption might come into play now that LSU has supposedly cured its quarterback ailments with the insertion of Danny Etling.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">It will be Etling’s first SEC road start, but the former Purdue starter is hardly a novice.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">His last road start was at Notre Dame.</span>