Column: Three-step drop or three steps back?

It took a change of pace and a long head-clearing walk during our sweet string of consecutive Chamber of Commerce days in Baton Rouge, but I think I figured out a tiny part of this craziness that brings you and I together here a few times a week.

When we get a taste of something, we want more. I think it's that simple.

Once you're exposed to top-drawer success, even a hint of reverting to a less glorious past is unwelcome.

Any minute, this guy could show up and take away the high life, and that's scary, isn't it?

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0_OxCHyLLkU&feature=related[/youtube]

By my count, we had seven amazing days, with beautiful blue sky and cool, just-like-a-real-autumn temperatures right out there in the sun. If that happened at some point in the past several years, and on the heels of so much rain, no doubt I was stuck in a cubicle farm and didn't notice.

Ahh, nice. Right? What did you do with your gorgeous weather? At what point did you remember the inevitable, that rain or muggy days -- or both -- were bound to return, sooner than you'd hope?

Today's forecast calls for rain in Southeast Louisiana, with more tonight. So, there you have it.

While I enjoyed the past week when I was able to get out and soak up some of it, I couldn't help thinking it was temporary. Why do we get a taste of something so energizing when it might not come around again for a long time?

My roommate's dog knows what I'm saying. I took her for a walk so I could do some thinking and give her some exercise, a break from long days in the house or on the captive side of the backyard fence.

Her excitement and bounce o' step were replaced, once we returned home, by a look of, "Let's do that again."

And the next day by a sad face that said, "Can we go for another walk?"

I needed to retrieve my big flat-panel computer monitor I lent to a friend while my PC was in storage, and the friend had to go back to using a smaller, old-style monitor. Her DVD player malfunctioned during an episode of "Dexter," so we watched on my Vizio. Going back to an old TV that's losing its picture was tough.

That's it, I thought. It's that simple.

After you see LSU score 38.6 points per game, as the Tigers did during the 2007 national championship season, who has fun seeing LSU struggle to average 23 points per game?

After you see LSU reel off a string of games with at least one 100-yard rusher, who enjoys seeing the running game slip?

After you see LSU catch the defense off guard with a big play, perfectly set up, who wants to see the Tigers seemingly more confused by their plan than the opposing team's defense appears to be?

Let me be the first to say I'm not breaking new ground here. This is the way of the world, and it applies to everything. Good makes us never want to see mediocre again. Great makes us impatient with good.

This is a good football team. Ranked No. 9 in the country, winner of five out of six games, and still able to at least dream about goals that remain within reach.

What would have been seen a decade ago as regrettable but understandable flaws in an otherwise upward surge arrive with alarm buzzers and red flags in 2009. So we analyze them, picking them apart for signs, trends, a hint of what's to come.

More than a few LSU fans have told me this season, "I know we're winning, but it's how we're winning."

"We're 5-1, and I'm not having fun watching this team."

"We've been good this whole decade. I know we're due to slip a bit, but I'm worried about the direction of the program."

A fan can watch his team's offense struggle to find the rhythm of the three-step drop, with enough protection to give the quarterback time to put the defense back on its heels, and the fan wonders if the program is taking three steps back.

Five-and-one and No. 9 in the country would have been cause for a party when the decade began, but we have enough history together to know there are plenty of seasons that showed promise at the halfway point before heading south.

And the devil's in the details, so we're all dissecting Mike the Tiger before he's dead, doing his postmortem as much as a diagnosis.

Even Auburn-LSU doesn't feel the same. This isn't the same matchup we became accustomed to from 2001 onward and upward.

LSU had an extra week to prepare, but many of the LSU fans I know are not optimistic they will see the offense come of age, with its pieces all falling into place. They fear they will see the offense that's ranked No. 112 in the country.

And yet, with the expected rain comes a cold front, and there will be football weather Saturday.

I hope you enjoy it.

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Carl Dubois has written or blogged about LSU sports since 1999. You can contact him at carl1061 'at' gmail.com.