24-hour cliché resets LSU’s clock

Published 7:00 pm Wednesday, November 8, 2017

As Ed Orgeron dropped the bombshell Monday, a hush fell over his weekly news luncheon.

There were scattered gasps and even unconfirmed reports of media-types “waking up.”

Television stations cut into their regularly scheduled programming, post haste.

Twitter began to flicker, petered out and then went up in flames.

The rumblings surely would eventually be felt across the entire college football landscape and most of the fruited plain.

Orgeron, that crazy-crafty, sneaky-smart Cajun, had just announced that, in response to losing a hard-fought game to Alabama, he was instituting the “24-hour rule.”

Boom!

Jaws dropped.

That serious, huh?

Who knew?

I know I didn’t see that one coming.

But desperate times call for desperate actions, and Orgeron was stopping at nothing.

Twenty-four (24) hours, huh?

Is that like Defcon 1 (high probability of thermal-nuclear warfare)?

Best Orgeron could explain it, in layman’s terms, it meant that after the gruelling loss to Alabama, the Tigers were allowed the full 24-hour period (cycle) to mope or gripe or cry or whine or wallow in pity or make excuses or blame the officials or just text their girlfriends about the misfortune in Tuscaloosa.

Tick, tick, tick … tock.

Then they must forget all about it — flush it — while turning their undivided focus and attention to the Arkansas Razorbacks, probably because that’s this week’s game.

It’s groundbreaking is all it is.

Pure genius.

Does Nick Saban know about this? Does he endorse it? Is it part of The Process? And, if so, has he hired a 24-hour rule “consultant” yet?

Orgeron will be a hot ticket on the next round of coaching clinics.

There will likely be a six-figure book deal. Jim Harbaugh will be tossing and turning at night trying to figure out how Michigan can one-up the BéBé and this latest volley from the SEC.

Funny thing, though.

As jut-jawed serious as Orgeron seemed about this drastic tactic, a little research found it not so breathtaking after all.

A survey of some 86 of the 130 FBS schools — OK, an educated guess on most of the ones I could think of (and private schools aren’t required to release such information) — found that roughly 100 percent of them employed the 24-hour rule regularly.

So it must be pretty fool-safe.

All but one of the responding schools also reported that their teams raised four fingers in the air while switching ends of the field following the third quarter to signify that they “own the fourth quarter.”

A sizable majority also embrace what is known as a “next-up” philosophy when dealing with unwanted injuries.

All of them steadfastly believe that “No team will outwork us” — unless they get stuck with an interim coach, in which case they are allowed to act like knucklehead high school students with a substitute teacher.

But I am curious as to how the 24-hour period has been all but universally agreed upon as the optimum number.

It reportedly dates to leather helmets and awful sideburns.

The NFL has a union. It’s possible the pros have negotiated their way into a “27-hour” rule, but that’s unconfirmed.

But perhaps back in the day studies were commissioned and a lot of early trial-and-error arrived at 24, even if exactly one day seems just a little bit too convenient, doesn’t it?

Anyway, even for all Orgeron’s self-satisfied posturing, apparently it’s standard practice now and comes in especially handy on a week like this.

There’s another common practice, specific to the SEC, known as “Not Letting Alabama Beat You Twice,” which is sometimes shortened simply to the “Bama Hangover.”

The effects sometimes aren’t pretty, often immune to aspirin and coffee.

It’s what LSU is fighting this week — 24-hour rule or not — while preparing for an Arkansas team that probably couldn’t beat the Tigers without that residual help from the Crimson Tide.

But strange things do happen in Bama’s wake. Arkansas must love that in recent years it catches the Tigers trying to act like they’ve “put Bama behind them.”

It bit Les Miles a few times, most notably in his final two full years.

In 2015 LSU took Alabama to overtime one week and hit Miles’ rock bottom the next when a Razorbacks team that hadn’t won a conference in two years beat the Tigers 17-0 (it only seemed like LSU had negative points). They had quite the party in Fayetteville.

The next year the Tigers were home nursing a Bama hangover and Arkansas hammered them 31-14.

Thus far Orgeron has been more adept at enforcing the 24-hour rule.

LSU was heartbroken a year ago after losing 10-0 to the Tide, yet bounced back for probably its best game of the season, a 38-10 shellacking in Fayetteville.

Maybe he’s on to something, even if our investigation has shown it to be just another cliché.

But two final questions, if it please the panel, specifically about that 24-hour rule.

During the period that LSU would have been observing its post-Bama, daylight saving time either went into effect or out of effect — I can never remember which — and we had to “fall back” one hour (your “spring forward” would be in the spring, if I recall) so it can get darker earlier.

So, did LSU get an extra hour for the 24-hour rule?

If so, how did they utilize it?

I guess we’ll find out.