Welcome to the first round of the College Football Playoffs — aka, Alabama at LSU.

Not officially, of course.

It’s not really even a play-in game. The winner of tonight’s affair will still have work to do before the pairings are announced in December.

But you can surely call it an elimination game — the loser can forget about making the CFP, even with the playoff expanded to 12 teams.

“All that stuff is out there,” LSU head coach Brian Kelly said. “But it doesn’t help us relative to what we need to do. If this is an elimination game, every game in the SEC is an elimination game. … This is about needing to play your best when your best is needed.”

Kelly will have to keep intact his streak of never losing a night game in Tiger Stadium — 13-0, including a 32-31 upset in overtime two years ago.

Both teams had their traditional open dates in advance of the game but approached the annual showdown from different angles.

The No. 14 Tigers (6-2, 3-1 Southeastern Conference) are ranked No. 15 in the first CFP rankings released this week and had two weeks to stew over their worst performance of the season. That was a 38-23 loss at Texas A&M where the Aggies blew past a 10-point LSU halftime lead.

No. 11 Alabama (6-2, 3-2) is ranked No. 11 in the CFP and is coming off an impressive 34-0 demolition of Missouri in its last game.

“You saw our response, I think with the Missouri game,” said first-year Tide head coach Kalen DeBoer.

It took some, but not all, of the heat off DeBoer, who still has two losses far earlier in the season than Tide fans were accustomed to under his revered predecessor, Nick Saban.

Saban will be at LSU as part of the panel for Saturday morning’s ESPN “College GameDay” telecast from the LSU Quadrangle.

LSU is no doubt just happy he’s not still on the sideline. The Tigers went 5-13 against their former coach after he went to Alabama.

Still, Kelly called the Tide the most balanced team — position by position — that the Tigers will face this season.

“This team still resembles the building blocks of coach Saban,” Kelly said. “A lot of the underpinnings are still there.

“There’s still that sense that there’s the man behind the curtain, if you will. You sense that in terms of the overall program.”

LSU will have to recover from giving up 242 yards in its Texas A&M debacle. It led to 31 second-half points for the Aggies, a charge aided by quarterback Garrett Nussmeier’s three interceptions.

Nussmeier does have that gunslinger reputation. He’s thrown nine interceptions, but also is second in the SEC both with 20 touchdown passes and 328 air yards per game.

Nussmeier said he learned valuable lessons from that A&M experience, but didn’t care to elaborate.

“I don’t like to share things like that,” he said. “There were definitely some lessons learned.

“I beat myself up for it for about a week, and then I had to flush it. We’re focused on Alabama.”

Kelly seemed more concerned that LSU had 24 yards rushing in its last game. The Tigers are last in the conference in rushing yards, although Alabama is way down at No. 14 in defending the run.

Kelly said LSU has to “make sure we have a commitment to making sure we have more balance with a running game.

“Garrett can’t be the guy that feels like he’s got to do everything. Part of it has to come from Garrett … to understand that (he) don’t have to make a play every time (he’s) out there.”