LSU must get over hangover, move on

Published 7:27 am Wednesday, November 9, 2016

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">If nothing else, that was a fine effort Ed Orgeron drug out of LSU against Alabama.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">A lot to be heartbroken about.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">Nothing to be ashamed of.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">If you’re keeping score at home on the Orgeron Dream Job audition, you’d call it a wash. Nothing gained, perhaps, but not much lost, either.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">It even seemed closer than the 10-0 final, if for no other reason than it was scoreless after three full quarters. The Tigers get extra credit for being mad about it, with nary a hint of any moral victory creeping into the picture.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">But Orgeron should put in a call to Les Miles.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">Playing Alabama tough is no great shakes, the easy part of November. The Tigers usually pull that part off, even if actual victories have been scarce.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">But now the tough chore. Now a real test for Orgeron. The search committee needs to be taking careful notes this week.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">It could actually be the litmus test. In the long run, it’s as important to the job as recruiting and speaking high-octane, heavy-gravel Cajun.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">Orgeron has to — gulp — find a cure for the dreaded Alabama Hangover.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">It has afflicted LSU for years, although most seasons the Tigers had the foresight to schedule accordingly.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">Not recently.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">It has been most every season’s headache from hell.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">Evidently, it’s not as simple as washing down two aspirin with a swig of Orgeron’s Red Bull.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">So far, LSU is saying all the right things, insisting it still has plenty to play for and is eager to make amends for last week’s near miss.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">“It’s awfully important, especially this week, that we forget about last week and move on to Arkansas,” Orgeron said.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">Good luck with that.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">Players echoed him. Orgeron added that at the beginning of this second season — post Miles — they agreed to take it one game at a time, which isn’t exactly a novel coaching approach.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">“They want to finish and give everything to LSU,” Orgeron said. “We have a lot riding on the line.”</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">But you’ve heard that before. LSU always talks a good game following Alabama.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">Pulling it off against live competition has been another matter.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">Like the new and improved Brandon Harris over the summer, you’ll need to see it with your own eyes.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">It doesn’t help that LSU, with Texas A&amp;M the latest force-fed rivalry and moved to the end of the season, LSU now gets Arkansas following Alabama (I’m guessing the SEC could raise a lot of money letting schools bid to get in that coveted schedule slot).</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">Arkansas, regardless of its talent level for a given season, has always been a dicey opponent for LSU. The Boot, which goes to the victor, just doesn’t seem to mean as much to the Tigers.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">There have been scattered outbreaks of hijinks in Baton Rouge, but Tigers have laid more eggs in the state of Arkansas than Tyson Foods.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">This year it’s Fayetteville, a fairly recent development.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">LSU played there the first year Arkansas was in the SEC — affectionately known as the “Rock Bottom” game in 1992 — to cap a 2-9 season.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">But then the game shifted to Little Rock for almost two decades. LSU had its ups and downs, but it’s nothing like the horrors of Fayetteville, which at a cursory glance seems like a quaint college town with modern amenities.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">The world-wide headquarters for Walmart is nearby and the Tigers always seem to show up seemingly auditioning for … well, like those famed “Women of Wal Mart” videos, they began with honest intentions and weren’t really meant to be light comedy.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">Even when LSU won in 2012, it wasn’t pretty, and a lot more of a 20-13 struggle than the Hogs’ talent would have suggested.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">Since then, you throw the Alabama Hangover into the mix and two years ago you get the Final Straw game, a 17-0 stinker against an Arkansas team that hadn’t won an SEC game in two years.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">The Tigers had promised in advance of the trip that they’d put another Alabama disappointment behind them. And yet — if you can believe it — they managed fewer yards that night in Fayetteville than they did in last Saturday’s game in Tiger Stadium.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">It was no better in Baton Rouge last year, a 31-14 post-Bama loss to the Hogs that put the wheels in motion for the awkward Les Miles fiasco the rest of the month.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">Fayetteville does up the ante, though.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">A quick check shows temperatures could get into the ’30s for this Saturday night — and you’d expect nothing less.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">I think Fayetteville, which never got the global warming memo, would have the same forecast for much of August.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">LSU, which has played its first eight games in shirt sleeves and sandals, will likely now get in touch with terms like “Arctic Blast” and “Polar Vortex’ and the dreaded “Wintry Mix.”</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">It’s why LSU in the future might want to re-think its open date strategy and get a little R&amp;R after playing Alabama.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">But if Orgeron can solve this mystery, find an elusive cure the hangover, then start working up the fine print in the permanent contract.</span>

<span class="R~sep~ACopyBody">It could still be an invigorating November.</span>