LSU plays Arkansas this week in what looks like a fairly even matchup that gives the Tigers a chance to stare down the usual post-Bama near-miss depression and put aside the debilitating injury list to get a leg up on finishing a frustrating season strong and maybe even with a flourish and win The Boot while inventing a Quarterback Controversy that nobody asked for or knew existed.

OK. You can exhale now. Whew.

The point is, it seems like this is as good a time as any to forget all of that and talk about who LSU’s next coach is going to be to replace Ed Orgeron.

As best I can tell LSU’s top selling point is that the Tigers’ last three head coaches all won national championships and only one of them was named Nick Saban.

Selling point: How tough can it be?

The other two eventually got fired for their efforts, which the school will have to acknowledge — it was in all the papers — but will no doubt skim over lightly.

Not to worry.

Selling point II: LSU’s history says the school will throw wads of money out of every window in the athletic administration building to get what it wants. Think of the fleet hitting the port for a long weekend.

So LSU football, according to most of the fan websites and a handful of reliable sources, is the best coaching job in the free world. Bar none.

So, really, it’s just a matter of picking and choosing who gets the honor of being the fourth consecutive LSU coach to win the big one.

Plus it’s almost unfair now that the Tigers have a homegrown athletic director in Scott Woodward with a penchant for flashy hires at previous stops at Washington and Texas A&M.

Athletic directors used to have to keep a handy list in their bottom right-hand drawer, just in case of emergency.

Nowadays the lists are readily available on social media, complete with the neat lists of the best candidates, some even with pros and cons.

And how, you ask, does one become a public candidate when the LSU athletic director is being as quiet as a church mouse?

It’s not brain surgery.

The usual route is that a head coach has his agent call his current school to let them know, in concerned tones, that “LSU is snooping around, making inquiries” just on the odd chance that the current school might want to talk and proactively sweeten its head coach’s current contract enough to the point that staying put is “what’s best for my family.”

Voilà, instant candidate. It’s all over the internet within milliseconds, beneficial to all.

Others play the same game until pretty soon you’ve got a complete list, waiting only for reporters to start tracking private jet flight paths from Baton Rouge to most of America’s college towns.

You start with Texas A&M’s Jimbo Fisher, of course. He’s always LSU’s first choice, although Les Miles was hired the one time the Tigers could have definitely landed him from right there on the staff.

Woodward knows the drill, having hired Fisher at Texas A&M. Woodward also must be chuckling now in the knowledge that Fisher doesn’t even have a buyout to his contract to protect the Aggies.

But it seems a long shot given that Fisher seems content with the Aggies and they with him.

Still, LSU can’t really do anything until Jimbo gives them an unequivocal, no-check-is-big-enough NO.

You never know, but let’s quickly scan some others, knee-jerk fashion.

Somehow Lincoln Riley’s name keeps popping up. But he seems as happy at Oklahoma as Fisher at A&M, and does LSU really want to hire a coach that Orgeron beat 63-28 less than two years ago?

Can’t believe I’m writing this, but apparently Ole Miss coach Lane Kiffin, formerly known in this fox hole as Little Lord Lane Kiffin, has matured to the point that he can be trusted with game sets containing small pieces, the 12-year-old-and-up models. Now throws tantrums only when absolutely warranted.

He’d be fun, an absolute trip, always entertaining, forever getting under opponents’ skin, probably an up-and-down roller coaster guaranteed to cause halftime ulcers.

Penn State’s James Franklin is a fine coach — try winning at Vanderbilt some time like he did — but somehow doesn’t seem like a good fit at LSU.

Former LSU defensive whiz Dave Aranda is doing good work at Baylor. The word when he was at LSU was that he had no interest in being a head coach. Apparently he got over it.

Louisiana-Lafayette’s Billy Napier has turned down most of the SEC’s dead-end jobs. Maybe an hour down I-10 is what he’s been waiting on.

But if I had to guess right now, it would be Mel Tucker at Michigan State, who, until getting upset at Purdue last week, was in danger of making the College Football Playoff.

He’s a Saban disciple, in fact was on Saint Nick’s LSU staff.

For what it’s worth the Tigers’ football fortunes forever changed the last time they raided Michigan State — for Saban.

Don’t be surprised if LSU makes a return visit.

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