Idle hands busy making idle plans

Published 6:00 pm Friday, July 13, 2018

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<p class="p1">You see? This is exactly what I’m talking about.

<p class="p1">This is why college football has to do something about its chronic offseason. Like, maybe eliminate it entirely.

<p class="p1">Drastic, yes. But desperate times call for harsh solutions and …

<p class="p1">OK, that’s not likely to happen.

<p class="p1">Instead, you have entirely too many fans counting down the days, most of them with way too much time on their hands.

<p class="p1">It’s a recipe for disaster.

<p class="p1">So, of course, you end up with Twitter catching its pants on fire over — what was it this time? — oh yeah, over Open Dates.

<p class="p1">Let that one sink in for a minute.

<p class="p1">It must have been a slow day in a lot of offices.

<p class="p1">But it seems somebody got to studying up on them.

<p class="p1">Probably a lot of people.

<p class="p1">But at least one of them noticed that LSU, which already has one of the nation’s most demanding schedules, will play four opponents this season that will conveniently enough be coming off an Open Date when the Tigers get them.

<p class="p1">Investigators were quickly on the case and it was uncovered that four (4) open-dated opponents is twice what any other SEC school will deal with this season.

<p class="p1">Every LSU eye, of course, immediately darted toward the nearest Alabama schedule to see how it compared. 

<p class="p1">And you guessed it. Alabama plays only one opponent that will be coming off an open date.

<p class="p1">Bama used to complain that almost everybody on its schedule seemed to have an open date before playing the Tide. 

<p class="p1">Not this year. Just the one.

<p class="p1">And the SEC office is still in Birmingham (just kidding, it has nothing to do with this). 

<p class="p1">Mississippi State and South Carolina get two opponents coming off open dates. Arkansas, Ole Miss and Kentucky get zero. The rest have only one.

<p class="p1">Three of LSU’s open daters are conference opponents — the Mississippi State game, then later back-to-back games against Alabama and Arkansas.

<p class="p1">The other is Louisiana Tech, the fourth game of the season.

<p class="p1">You could almost give the home opener opponent, Southeastern Louisiana, half an open date. The Lions will open the season on the Thursday before LSU opens Sunday night in Arlington, Texas, against Miami. 

<p class="p1">So what’s it all mean?

<p class="p1">Probably not much.

<p class="p1">But in July it’s about all you’ve got to bicker about, so hop aboard.

<p class="p1">No need to wonder when LSU’s open date falls.

<p class="p1">The Tigers apparently have a simple formula. They figure out when they play Alabama and schedule an open date the previous week, making sure there is leisure time built in for the players and extra study time for the coaches.

<p class="p1">Yeah, and how has that been working out lately?

<p class="p1">Maybe LSU needs to think outside the box a little, just to say it was trying something different.

<p class="p1">Maybe that open date would be better served the week after playing Alabama.

<p class="p1">LSU has had some Bama hangovers in the past, and Arkansas (which will again have an open date the week before hosting LSU coming off the Bama game) has often been the beneficiary. Maybe the most futile game of the Les Miles era was the Hogs’ 17-0 post-Bama win over the Tigers in 2014.

<p class="p1">You probably don’t want to be scheduling anything too filling that week before the Alabama game.

<p class="p1">Doesn’t matter, though.

<p class="p1">LSU’s policy is not likely to change — certainly not as long as Alabama always schedules its open date before the game (which the Tide has done every year since 2009).

<p class="p1">Nick Saban probably has two or three of his spare “consultants” who do nothing but sit around all day playing with the numbers and the metrics of Open Dating. He doesn’t leave much to chance. If there’s an edge to be had, he’s going to find it.

<p class="p1">But maybe there’s more to it than that. Alabama also has its blood match with Auburn to finish every season.

<p class="p1">It’s a little late in the season to hold that spot for a previous-week open date.

<p class="p1">Both Auburn and Alabama have found a work-around to the problem.

<p class="p1">Before facing each other, Alabama will play The Citadel. Auburn will play Liberty.

<p class="p1">See, in the SEC sometimes it’s possible to find an Open Date that fields a varsity.

<p class="p1">But it’s a never-ending conundrum, especially in July.

<p class="p1">Sometimes maybe you can overanalyze it.

<p class="p1">Stop me if I’ve told this one before, but the late LSU coach Charlie McClendon once summed up open dates perfectly.

<p class="p1">His Tigers were once coming off an offweek and facing a team that had also been idle the previous week.

<p class="p1">Oh, the horrors. The upcoming game would be doubly tough on the Tigers, Charlie Mac explained, because while “we’ll probably be a little rusty with the time off, but they’ve had two weeks to prepare for us.”

<p class="p1"> 

<hr /><p class="p2"><strong>Scooter Hobbs</strong> covers LSU athletics. Email him at shobbs@americanpress.com