OK, let’s go ahead and call it official.

After all these years of wandering and searching and mostly trying to force-fit things, LSU finally has itself a biggest, baddest, most bitter rival.

And vice versa.

Alabama likely will continue to be LSU’s obsession, but the year-around rivalry thing is now spoken for.

Come on down, Texas A&M.

It always kind of made sense.

At times, it even seems like one of those traditional in-state lovefests.

Aggies seem to be all over Louisiana.

Houston, only about an hour and a half from the A&M College Station campus, is overflowing with Tigers, many stuck in traffic just like they learned in Baton Rouge.

But that’s not important now.

The Aggies have been in the SEC long enough (since 2011) now that it doesn’t feel like a nonconference game, which the two had a long history of playing.

A few years ago, I seem to recall then-LSU coach Les Miles suggested spicing things up with a rusty old oil field wrench or some such as the game’s trophy.

Not sure if that ever got much traction. As usual, Uncle Les was probably ahead of his time.

But the rivalry time is now.

This week surely was the final piece of the puzzle when the Tigers lured very popular Texas A&M Athletic Director Scott Woodward home to Baton Rouge to replace their very unpopular Joe Alleva.

Nyaa-nyaa-nyaa-nyaaaa-nya.

LSU fans would surely be happy to send them Alleva as a straight-up even trade, but don’t hold your breath.

One problem with all this: At some point, the fans and players are going to have to get involved in the silliness and pettiness that make a rivalry nasty.

Right now, most of the nasty scrapes seem to be generated in the schools’ executive wings and maybe a courtroom or two.

Woodward was just the latest example, albeit a glaring one.

LSU and its Alleva saga showed that an entire fan base can easily turn against an athletic director, but it’s not the college position you generally fall head over heels in love with.

It’s just kind of there.

Woodward was different at A&M, the AD on a roll who landed Jimbo Fisher for football and, just recently, followed that up by getting Buzz Williams for basketball.

Pretty big fish.

So that had to hurt. And give LSU credit.

Never mind that LSU had an unnatural advantage in that Woodward is an alum, a Baton Rouge native, as Louisiana to the core as Ed Orgeron (with less accent) and was going to his dream job.

He probably doesn’t leave the sweet gig he had at A&M for anywhere else.

All the better, maybe, for LSU gloating rights.

But will it get the fan bases going?

It can certainly build on the ill will LSU fans had after feeling like they were royally shafted in the seven-overtime football game last year in College Station.

Even there, though, the nasty stuff came after the marathon and involved not players or fans, but some low-level football staffers from the two sides in an ugly postgame confrontation.

At least it was on the field.

Most of the dueling takes place out of sight.

Fisher, for instance, always popular with LSU fans, a rare favorite even though he was offensive coordinator during his days in Tigertown.

LSU fans long had their wandering eyes on him, only to see Alleva twice fail to reel him in from Florida State following the 2015 and 2016 seasons.

Woodward, on the other hand, seemed to get the job done for A&M in about 15 minutes.

The LSU-A&M Office Wars began when the Aggies, then coached by Kevin Sumlin, plucked LSU defensive coordinator John Chavis away from Les Miles.

LSU (Alleva) got petty about it and sued Chavis for the $400,000 buyout on his contract, which surprisingly made for some offseason entertainment.

But eventually too many lawyers got involved to keep the plot moving briskly enough, and few noticed when the suit was eventually thrown out of court — a win, basically, for Chavis after it turned out that contract was null and void to begin with because Alleva and LSU had altered some language after he signed it.

Anyway, LSU eventually ended up with Dave Aranda as defensive coordinator and Chavis eventually ended up at Arkansas, so the Tigers could claim victory.

But not without a fight. The Aggies (Fisher) made a run at hiring Aranda, which got him a nice raise to stay at LSU.

Chalk one up for the Tigers, but, again, back room stuff.

Hang on, though. Some of this ought to be leaking out onto some fields of play anytime now.

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Scooter Hobbs covers LSU athletics. Email him at shobbs@americanpress.com