OMAHA, Neb. — It’s the great conundrum of being in Omaha for the College World Series.

It’s a mystery. An enigma.

It’s the mecca for college baseball players, after all.

They dream of getting here for the Greatest Show on Dirt. Most have imagined playing in this thing since childhood.

No other college sporting event, certainly, is so identified with one place.

For all the hours, work, sweat and travel, this is the ultimate goal.

We’re going to Omaha!

And then you get here.

And it’s great, it really is.

But one thing hasn’t changed since quirky, lovable old Rosenblatt Stadium gave way to the sleek, modern amenities of corporate-suited TD Ameritrade Park.

Once you get here, once that lifelong dream is realized, the whole focus shifts.

Understand — TD Ameritrade is right on the edge of downtown, easy to find.

It kind of sticks out. Can’t miss it, plenty of parking, too.

For that matter, the teams get a police escort in and out.

It’s a commanding structure. Young men’s eyes have been known to water up at first sight.

But once you reach the College World Series, oddly, the whole goal is actually to avoid the joint at all costs.

It’s a tried and true method.

Good things happen in there, sometimes.

But bad things happen, too, often times unexplainable.

You don’t want to test your luck.

Ask Florida State, which is still trying to figure out how it lost to LSU Saturday night (it’s a long story).

And that’s the rub.

For all the joys the actual ball yard can bring, more often it’s bad news.

You can burn up pitching that may be needed later. The souvenirs are over-priced. Worst of all, you can lose.

Every trip into that stadium can bring you one step closer to getting sent home empty-handed.

It only takes two losses and BAM — the whole thing is over.

The competition is good. The game is quirky.

Don’t tempt it.

It is far better to twiddle your thumbs for a couple of days. Find a high school field in the suburbs if you insist on hitting a few fungoes and taking some infield.

Visit the world-famous zoo. Take in Old Market, sort of a clean French Quarter. Maybe a little golf. There’s a fine steak house on dang near every corner.

Commune with family.

Anything.

LSU was going to take a team field trip to Offutt Air Force Base Sunday, about 15 miles south of Omaha, but the mega-thunderstorm that hit Friday night did such damage that the base wasn’t taking visitors until the place could get tidied up a bit.

At least they didn’t have to go play a game.

You want anything but baseball where they keep score, and might mark one against you.

“I wish we played every day,” said LSU coach Paul Mainieri, misjudging the question as a probe into how this CWS meanders along, sometimes as slow as road construction.

Then he caught on.

“Oh, yes,” he said. “You have to win that second game. Get time off. Stay away from the ballpark.”

That’s the solution. 

That’s the fork in the road LSU faces tonight when it meets No. 1 seed Oregon State.

Win this game and it’s three days R&R and zoo trips until playing a game on Friday, with the odds stacked in your favor.

It’s the good life.

Lose, and you’re back down in steerage, trying to beg, borrow and steal your way back into the championship round. 

From there, it would take three wins to get to the championship round instead of one.

It’s a tightrope without a net.

Better for others to walk it, teetering on the brink, while you try to amuse yourself, perhaps asking locals where Warren Buffet lives and if they ever see him at the Dollar General.

That losers’ bracket can be a blood bath.

It’s tried and true.

Seven times the Tigers have won the first two games here under the current format, an opportunity to get far more familiar with room service back at the hotel than the base paths.

Six of those times the Tigers won the national championship.

Mainieri certainly understands that history, no matter how much he’d like to speed up the process. 

“Oh, we’re not going to hold anything back,” he said Sunday. “We’re going to do everything we can to win this game.”