OK, I get it.

LSU lost a game.

Lost a game many expected the Tigers to win.

Lost a game to a team, Mississippi State, that LSU fans were accustomed to beating.

Not only that, but it surely didn’t appear to be a fluke and, in fact, it took some sleights of hand to tidy the scoreboard to a mere 34-29 deficit.

Woe to the Tigers.

The sun did indeed come up the next day — a surprise to many — but there were the usual complications.

In other words, yes, the sky is falling, double panic has set in and the football apocalypse is near and the Golden Age kaput now that it’s apparent that the Tigers will be lucky to win another game. And, for that matter, would Michigan please give Les Miles one more shot at coming home?

Or at least get the rumors going again.

LSU’s official response has been just as swift and almost as predictable.

The Tigers scheduled New Mexico State.

Take that!

In the tense buildup to the game, with fans counting down the days, Miles, having studied the tapes, was quick to explain that this bunch is the one that isn’t from Albuquerque, it’s the one from Las Cruces, and they’re the Aggies, which spares us the time and effort of looking up what in tarnation a Lobo is.

No, he didn’t actually do that. Just kidding. I just know it was the first thing I had to double-check.

As somebody asked me this week, isn’t one of those New Mexico schools kind of good?

Answer: No.

But LSU will charge full price for tickets and surely at some point Saturday night will spin-doctor the affair into a nice bounce-back victory and proof positive that all the doomsday theorists were wrong.

But nobody will buy it. Face it, there is nothing the Tigers can do to New Mexico State that will make any kind of statement that gets LSU fans down off the ledge, ready to resume the season.

But most will still watch.

So, with all due diligence and a never-ending sense of public service, I have spent all week researching as to why you should care that LSU is playing New Mexico State Saturday night.

………

And that’s about all I have to say about that.

And yet we’re barely halfway through this column.

So we must trudge on. Consider it a primer.

New Mexico State University, it turns out, is not particularly “new” or “Mexico,” but it is apparently located in a “state.”

Probably New Mexico.

But even that wasn’t the case when the school was founded in 1888. Back then it was located in what was known as a “territory,” which back in the day was sort of a state on training wheels.

It has evolved, however, to the point that it apparently fields a varsity football team most every year. The Aggies, in fact, are back in the Sun Belt Conference which also houses UL-Lafayette and UL-Monroe.

I was particularly intrigued, however, by one of Las Cruces’ points of civic pride — namely, the state-of-the-art Spaceport America. It was built just up the road a piece for the express purpose of one day lifting private citizens into space and also, should the need ever arise, provide safe landing (and haven) for any extraterrestrial spacecraft that might wander by, perhaps from Monroe.

It is up and running, fully functional, and already performing all of its intended duties except spaceporting.

But back to football, this game, which is a rare opportunity for LSU this year to play two sets of Aggies in one season.

After his own film study, what Miles has noticed about these Aggies is that “You can see that they’re aligned well. They’re in position.”

It’s an underrated aspect, perhaps, to this game, maybe any game. You can’t ever trust a team that aligns well.

And don’t overlook the fact that Aggies with long memories will have the revenge factor and will be exhorting their undersized team to make amends for 1996, when the Tigers put a 63-7 whipping on their beloved New Mexico State.

Or maybe not.

The rallying battle cry from New Mexico State head coach Doug Martin’s news conference this week seemed to be:

“We’re going to have all Sun Belt Conference games left after this one.”

Later Martin, who has been to Tiger Stadium before, back when he was, in his own words “impersonating a football player” while on full scholarship at Kentucky, explained his game plan at length.

“We’re taking a knife to a gunfight,” he said, although in the official logo the school’s mascot, an Aggie-looking fellow with a handlebar mustache, is clearly holding a pistol and pointing it at someone … or, perhaps, we should hope, something.

“I don’t want to say this one doesn’t matter,” Martin continued. “We want to go win this football game. But at the same time we’ve got to be smart with our players.

“We’re going to do the best job we can to help our players finish this game.”

LSU no doubt will finish the game, perhaps with a sobering thought.

They are going to have all SEC games left after this one.

l

Scooter Hobbs covers LSU

athletics. Email him at

shobbs@americanpress.com(Rick Hickman/American Press)