BATON ROUGE — Maybe now it makes more sense.

But for an emotional coach who wears his feelings on his Cajun sleeves, Ed Orgeron didn’t seem all that excited about LSU’s totally unexpected 49-42 upset of Florida Saturday.

He did remember to growl the obligatory “Geaux Ti-gahs!” at the end but it didn’t seem as natural.

Given the circumstances, I thought it odd at the time.

It was one of the best coaching jobs, non-2019 category, of the Orgeron era.

Maybe that shocker wasn’t a job-saver, but at the least it should have given pause to those rabble-rousers banging at the gate, at worst a one-week reprieve from those wanting his scalp.

Turns out the Florida game was a nice diversion, but nothing more. For three and half hours, it may have seemed like a real football season again, a fun game against a bitter rival to witness an unexpected win and be a part of a beautiful Saturday afternoon.

But, bottom line, it didn’t really matter what happened against Florida.

And Orgeron knew it when he mustered up that half-hearted “Geaux Tigers” at the end.

The deal had already been done earlier in the week, perhaps with just some i’s to dot and t’s to cross on the buyout.

Orgeron will be gone at the end of the year — the same reports say he will finish out the season.

We shall see about that.

Maybe part of LSU’s recent problem since the 2019 magic is that there isn’t anybody on the staff who would be the natural choice to step in as interim coach.

But those are only details.

Just when it looked to be crawling up out of a ditch, the rest of LSU’s season is now insignificant.

It’s just fodder, the games a mere distraction to a coaching search that will be internet heaven for alot of click-bait addicts.

Never mind Orgeron. He’ll be paid handsomely.

It’s not fair to the fans. Certainly not to the players who still want to win games — they proved that Saturday — ­and have their fans still care about them.

Why LSU officials were trying to pester Orgeron about his coaching life and his dream job while he was trying to prepare for Florida one game at a time is anybody’s guess.

It couldn’t wait for the open date after this week’s game at Ole Miss?

Maybe the decision makers — and athletic director Scott Woodward is the only voice that matters — didn’t want to leave it to chance.

Woodward wasn’t around, but he knows what happened in 2015 when Les Miles was a dead coach walking for the latter part of the season.

The clandestine plan then was to let word of Miles imminent demise leak out with several games remaining, leaving Miles to twist in the wind through embarrassing losses to Arkansas and Ole Miss.

They ended up red-faced when the Miles Sympathy Vote kicked in and they were forced to do a very awkard about-face in the middle of the regular season’s final game against Texas A&M.

They had to wait a full four games into the following season before finally running off Miles.

Maybe the power brokers  figured they’d been there, done that, and didn’t want it to backfire on them again.

So now LSU will play out the string in a meaningless season.

Assistant coaches may  justifiably be spending as much time on their next job-search applications as on a game plan to slow down Ole Miss or  Alabama.

At least when Miles was fired, you had the added drama of whether Orgeron, as a pure-bred Louisiana interim head coach most of the state was pulling for, could do enough to earn the job full time.

This season?

It’s done for — and just when LSU gave some hint that the Tigers might be worth watching the rest of the way.

Last year it was mounting opt-outs that left LSU a shell of itself. But what was left turned out pretty good, upsetting Florida and beating Ole Miss to end the season with some optimism.

This year it was an injuries. But the team of mostly unknown Tigers LSU fielded Saturday was very much up to the task and looked excited and determined about doing it.

Who knows what happens going forward.

What if they accidentally beat Alabama? Not likely, granted.

But when does this truly become a done deal?

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