There is a downside to LSU’s scheduling theory of opening against tough opponents before taking a lighter touch to work out the kinks in Week 2.

Once you lose that opener, which the Tigers surely did to Southern Cal on Sunday, for many fans who waited nine months to see their team, it’s time to fire coach.

It’s generally a temporary uprising, but when you’ve got a Nicholls State up next for a home opener, there’s nothing Brian Kelly or the Tigers can do to the Colonels to rectify the situation just yet.

That will have to wait.

On the positive side, regardless of what happens Saturday, apparently the LSU players will all be allowed to keep their scholarships.

Whew. Good to get that settled.

This, even though the Tigers will still be in their dressing room when the national anthem is played.

Yeah, I had forgotten about that, too.

But, remember last spring when Gov. Jeff Landry couldn’t resist a little political flag-waving? He wrapped himself up in the Stars and Stripes and all fairly well portrayed the LSU women’s basketball team as being American traitors because they were in the dressing room during the national anthem before an NCAA Tournament game.

Never mind that they weren’t protesting anything, they were just going through their standard pregame protocol as they’d always done — the same way most teams do it.

By the time the governor got through show-boating on Fox News, he was promising to push through legislation that would require all Louisiana student-athletes to be hand for the national anthem — or else violators would have their scholarships yanked.

“If you don’t like it, well, guess what? You don’t have to play the sport,” Landry said at the time.

LSU football, of course, has always run out on the field shortly after the national anthem, which is accepted protocol all throughout the Southeastern Conference.

It’s part of the natural flow and rhythm of Tiger Stadium’s pregame, and it’s been going on for as long as anybody can remember without any known threats to democracy.

It would appear the school played it right, laying low, saying little and letting the original furor die down.

Only last week did LSU announce that, no, there had been no changes to Tiger Stadium’s routine in this, the 100th year, of its existence.

There were no known counter threats from the Governor’s Mansion.

But apparently there’s another side of the LSU football and the Tiger Stadium experience that the governor, a Louisiana-Lafayette alum, would like to meddle with to get changed. Or, rather, revived.

He wants Mike VII, the school’s live-tiger mascot back on the field — presumably in a small cage on wheels, if that old thing is still around.

It’s not clear whether the tiger’s scholarship will be at risk if he’s not present.

That was done for years, of course, although as I recall, at least in the later years, the various Mikes were nonchalantly eased off the field and back to the palatial habitat across the street just before the game started.

I honestly can’t remember if those live Tigers stood at attention or not for the national anthem.

But Mike VII, the current mascot, has never been inside Tiger Stadium.

The previous mascot, Mike VI, made his last trip inside for the season opener in 2015.

That game was canceled by lightning shortly after it began — a sign from above? — and, although the game wasn’t played, your McNeese State Cowboys became the answer to the trivia question of who was the last team to run out of the visiting dressing room — risking life and limb! — to run right past the tiger cage onto the field.

There were many tall tales, all of them no doubt highly exaggerated, of visiting teams terrified to leave the dressing room with a man-eating beast right outside their door.

The mascot’s pregame presence in stadium did get a lot of play back in the day.

But LSU football has seemingly gotten along just fine without it for a decade now.

Anyway, visiting fans always seemed more fascinated by it than Tiger Stadium’s regular customers.

In fact, I would think it’s better, certainly more accessible, the way LSU does it now.

Mike VII’s luxurious digs are right across the street from the stadium.

He’s generally out there, taking visitors, all day on football Saturdays.

It’s right at the foot of the hill that the LSU team and the Golden Band from Tigerland walk down en route to their chores. It’s surely the most popular gathering spot for tailgaters, whether as a well-known spot to meet up, to hand-off tickets or to just to say hello to a live tiger playing in his swimming pool rather than sleeping in a cage.

Face it, when the tiger was in the stadium, about all you could really see was that small cage. It took powerful binoculars to detect there was a live tiger inside it.

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