It wasn’t sluggishness that slowed LSU down in Saturday’s early game

Published 7:00 pm Monday, November 13, 2017

BATON ROUGE — See, that wasn’t so bad now, was it?

Tiger Stadium hosted a football game under a brilliant morning sun, and no helmets melted, no players had to be awakened on the sidelines, none tripped on the morning dew and the dire predictions of pre-game traffic gridlock were way overrated (no worse than usual).

 Blasphemous as it sounds, Tiger Stadium seemed to adjust fairly well to an 11 a.m. kickoff.

With all the advance moaning and groaning, you’d have thought they were talking 6 a.m. and that the guarantee of a full day of pre-game tailgating was written somewhere in the Bill or Rights.

It was a late-arriving crowd, for sure –— about half probably missed the F-16 military flyover — but it wasn’t like you were going to confuse it with the spring game atmosphere or something.

It was hardly a full house, but more than I expected, and, for that matter, a lesser percent than usual seemed intent on fleeing the confines at halftime than do for night games in recent years, regardless of the game situation.

That was an unexpected benefit. Maybe there’s nothing else better to do at that hour and they just hung  around without an excuse to leave.

On a personal level, I can confess that the early start was a big hit in the press box where, with chores done and adjectives exhausted, we exited with most of the day still ahead of us, daylight still in evidence and decent restaurants still open.

A couple of hours after the Tigers had finished off Arkansas 33-10, there were still many tailgaters out and about. 

Most of them seemed to be standing around like they didn’t really know what to do, but felt they ought to be standing around anyway, doing something or another, since it wasn’t near-about dark yet.

In other words, no harm done.

Not suggesting LSU attempt a late-morning stunt like this regularly, but with the TV contracts that are going to happen from time to time, the Tigers might as well get used to it.

Tiger Stadium will survive.

As for the players, it occurred to me that, at LSU at least, most of them  have designs of post-graduate football, and it would only be an hour earlier they’d be punching the clock for an NFL paycheck.

Might as well get used to it.

Still, the game itself had the somewhat awkward “feel” that you’d wandered into a familiar room but someone had rearranged the furniture or something.

It just looked a little strange. It was LSU football … but not quite.

OK, about the game.

Afterwards, most of the media was quick to jump on the notion that the “early wake-up call” was responsible for the “sluggish” behavior of the Tigers in the first half.

It was just too convenient. Lazy, yes, but convenient. It certainly wasn’t deadline pressure. Not this day.

Head coach Ed Orgeron even fell for it in explaining the 7-7 halftime tie.

“Very sluggish,” he said.

Yet in the first quarter it was two odd penalties — an illegal substitution and an illegal touch — that slowed the Tigers down. They’ve hardly been immune to that even for optimal start times and it sure wasn’t the alarm clock’s fault that LSU couldn’t kick a tap-in field goal or two straight extra points. When LSU finally scored on Danny Etling’s 45-yard toss to DJ Chark, it was about as crisp as football gets.

All the juices should have been flowing in the second quarter when the LSU offense really bogged down (just 16 yards) and the defense momentarily forgot how to tackle enough for a 7-7 tie.

As good of a story as it makes, LSU didn’t wipe the sleep out of it eyes for a dominant second half. They cleaned up normal football maladies that strike at any hour of the day.

“I always felt we were going to win the game,” Orgeron said, and that is the way it appeared, even with everyone wearing Ray-Bans.

The Tigers did win. Fairly easily and without much drama outside the kicking game. They should have. LSU is not a great team right now. But it is much better than Arkansas.

In the end, the 33-10 final was about right. Add in the hidden five points lost on gimme kicks, and it’s the same score as last year in Fayetteville, which was widely hailed as the Tigers’ best game of the season.

The only disturbing thing was that several of the LSU players credited the lure of the “Golden Boot” trophy for getting their dander up enough to straighten up the act in the second half.

They didn’t get the memo that on the LSU side the bulky thing is considered a yawning matter, something to tolerate and by all means to take home, but not to lust over.

“This is a rivalry game,” Orgeron said. “I think it’s a little more a rivalry game for them. When they play LSU, they play over their heads.”

 Yes, LSU tends to think of the Hogs as just another breakfast meat.

Yet it was well after lunch Saturday before any feast began.

But you know what they say. Bacon is good anytime.