Remember in "Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan" when James T. Kirk acknowledged beating the no-win scenario by reprogramming the computer to allow him to prevail in the test known as the Kobayashi Maru? I knew you would.

Younger readers might more readily recall the same plot line from the 2009 reboot of the "Star Trek" series. The Kirk played by Chris Pine casually takes a bite out of his apple after cheating his way to victory in the attack simulation.

In the fifth season of what so far is his five-year mission at LSU, coach Les Miles faces the no-win scenario beginning at 6 p.m. Saturday in Tiger Stadium. LSU plays the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, which hasn't scored a touchdown against LSU in the past 11 games between the schools.

LSU is 21-0 against UL-Lafayette, having outscored the Ragin' Cajuns 957-22 in those games. Sixteen were shutouts.

Twenty-one tries, no victories for ULL.

Even if it wins, LSU can't win. The Tigers are expected to win, and handily. You play a game like this, you have nothing to gain and everything to lose.

Cajuns have been underdogs since they left Nova Scotia. They love this kind of opportunity.

For LSU fans, it's a "that's a win" game. What's that, you ask? Well, when people look ahead at a team's schedule during the offseason, they scroll down one at a time, mentally (or actually) checking off each game on the list.

"That's a win."

"That's a win."

"Well, that's a maybe."

LSU, I suspect, is the all-time leader in "that's a win" games on pocket schedules. What I learned about spending money before I earned it, I learned from LSU fans who routinely pocketed 10-1 seasons before the first kickoff.

That was before the 12-game regular season, which caused teams to have to find an extra opponent every year, and it put the Ragin' Cajuns back on LSU's schedule every few years.

Rickey Bustle, the former offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach at Virginia Tech, is in his eighth season as UL-Lafayette's coach. He says this is his best team.

Miles is coming off his worst season at LSU, and despite a 2-0 start the natives seem restless. Are they spoiled? Are they justified in worrying about what the rest of the season has in store for their Tigers?

I read this week that fans of the New York Yankees, New England Patriots and other storied franchises aren't spoiled; rather, they hold their teams to a higher standard of excellence. I would submit it's possible to do the latter and still be spoiled.

None of that changes the job awaiting the Tigers in their no-win scenario.

The Ragin' Cajuns are 2-0 after a 42-19 manhandling of Southern and a 17-15 upset of Kansas State. They are feeling good about themselves, and history tells them there's no harm in walking into Tiger Stadium and giving it a shot.

Bustle's boys play in the Sun Belt Conference, which last year was won by a Troy team that put the Tigers back on their heels before a stunned (and steadily thinning) crowd in Death Valley. Before LSU rallied for a 40-31 victory, Troy had a 31-3 third-quarter lead.

That's something, right, if you're a fan of the Cajuns? It's inspiring, at least until one remembers that the very next week, Troy hammered ULL 48-3 at Movie Gallery Stadium in Troy, Ala.

So, in keeping with the motion picture theme, I suppose one could ask whether the Cajuns are out of their Vulcan minds thinking they can stay on the field with LSU.
Well, there is a reason shocking upsets are shocking. Few see them coming.

They happen at these games that are no-win situations for the heavily favored team.

Having a decided talent advantage doesn't always guarantee victory. A case in point is UAB's 13-10 victory at LSU in 2000.

The Blazers put five players on the field who later wore NFL uniforms. By my count, LSU put 15 players on the field who were later drafted or signed to contracts by NFL teams.

See if you can spot them from this participation list from the boxscore: Fred Booker, Ryan Clark, Jerel Myers, Reggie Robinson, Damien James, Trev Faulk, LaVar Johnson, Bradie James, Josh Booty, LaBrandon Toefield, Adrian Mayes, Josh Reed, Lionel Thomas, Domanick Davis, Demetrius Hookfin, Norman LeJeune, Travis Moses, John Corbello, Tommy Banks, Kenderick Allen, Jeremy Lawrence, Jarvis Green, Donnie Jones, Jack Hunt, Kyle Kipps, Robert Royal, Howard Green, Byron Dawson and Kareem Mitchell.

LSU's roster featured 15 more players who were eventually drafted or signed to NFL contracts but didn't play against UAB because they weren't ready or because Nick Saban wanted to redshirt them in 2000.

So much for the misconception that Saban didn't inherit any NFL talent from Gerry DiNardo on LSU's roster or the DiNardo portion of LSU's 2000 recruiting class.

And a UAB team with bottom-tier Division I-A talent walked into Tiger Stadium and left with a victory against that talent.

Stuff happens (especially when a quarterback checks to a play that isn't in the playbook).

Saban, you may recall, went on to coach at Alabama, which lost at home in 2007 to UL-Monroe. Southeastern Conference football teams coached by men with national championship rings aren't supposed to lose to UL-Anybody.

While you and I have looked at this game from a variety of angles, Miles and his staff and players have been doing what coaches and players do: studying videotape, preparing a game plan, refining assignments and rehearsing.

You beat your man, I'll beat my man, and that's how we'll win this game. That's how they go about it. They can't afford to think about 957-22 in the 21-game history of UL-Lafayette playing LSU. It has nothing to do with them.

And yet, it will have everything to do with them if ...

Bustle is realistic about this game. He knows LSU has far better talent and speed. He knows the Cajuns will have to be almost perfect, man for man, and probably use a gimmick or two.

If you can get a superior defense to swarm too aggressively in one direction, you can open big holes elsewhere. It's akin to the martial arts that use an opponent's strength against him. Bustle, who coached Michael Vick at Virginia Tech, is smart enough to know how to do that.

That doesn't mean his players can pull it off, or that LSU's players will consistently fall for it. This might be one of those games that gives us insight into the halftime adjustments of a Tigers defense coached by John Chavis.

It shouldn't even take that long, but ...

Tiger Stadium has chewed up and spit out better teams than this ULL bunch, but give it a late-arriving crowd, a lethargic crowd, a crowd not fully satisfied by the 2-0 start, and if the Cajuns make a couple of plays that help them continue to feel good about themselves, then ...

See? I can't finish some of these sentences. Can't see it happening.

Neither can you.

That's why they call them upsets.

That's why this one is a no-win setup for Les Miles and his boys. This is a W that was long ago checked off on the pocket schedule.

More than any of us could probably guess, it's weeks like this one when coaches have to earn their salary. This one was money in the bank a long time ago, spent already by a fan base planning road trips to Mississippi State and Georgia and thinking about their tailgating plans for the return home for the Florida game.

But they still have to play the game, and that's why you'll watch. Me too.

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Carl Dubois has written or blogged about LSU sports since 1999, when he arrived in Baton Rouge in time to cover LSU's victory against North Texas, the second game of DiNardo's last season with the Tigers. You can contact him at carl1061 'at' gmail.com.