By JOHN JAMES MARSHALL/Designated Writers

The first thing I though of when I heard LSU had decided to self-impose a one-year bowl ban for the football team was that the NCAA should impose a two-year bowl ban for LSU imposing a one-year bowl ban.

Others have wondered if it wasn’t so much of LSU imposing the ban as opposed to Mississippi State imposing it. And Missouri imposing it. And Auburn. And Texas A&M. And Alabama.

The statement, borrowed from almost every school who thinks a bowl ban is going to make everything go away, spoke of “commitment to compliance with NCAA regulations and maintenance of institutional control.” While they were at it, they should have gone ahead and thrown in “abundance of caution,” “health and safety of the student-athlete,” and “unprecedented times” in order to make them use all the phrases that schools roll out whenever they are trying to hide from the truth and hope the public will buy it.

Does LSU think that the NCAA is going to close up the briefcases and say “Well, our work here is done! Maybe we can squeeze in 18 holes before we head back home.”

So a 3-5 team that is a 20-point underdog in its next game, may not play its last game, and has players jumping ship like it hit an iceberg is really going to penalize itself by not going to a bowl game. Yes, publicly, they’ve been saying all the right things about going to a bowl — “getting extra reps in practice” is always a standard quote — but the following is the list of players (and probably coaches) who want to be in a bowl game this year:

There. That’s the list.

Even in a “precedented” year, a Power 5 team headed for a losing record wants to go home, not to a bowl. Even though the NCAA allows 6-6 teams to go to bowls, it’s only because they over-booked the bowl game flight and somebody has to fill those spots. It’s gotten to be that any city with an Applebee’s that wants a bowl game and the NCAA gets out the rubber stamp. There have actually been five 5-7 teams go to bowl games in the last five years, to make it even more laughable.

Do you really believe LSU would be imposing a bowl ban if they were 5-3 instead of 3-5? The only thing that makes it even more laughable is the timing. If you self-impose a bowl ban before the season starts, that’s a different cat.

It’s like when we were kids and we’d give up broccoli for Lent. Boy, that was a tough one. What a struggle.

LSU can’t seen to get out of its own way. Hardly a day — or an hour — goes by without the school tripping over the furniture. It’s like they are walking around under a tree and asking for more rope. Sexual assault charges. Rumors of this and rumors of that. Polarizing politics. Bad culture.

There is something going on with this football program that isn’t right. LSU isn’t the first team to go from great one year to crappy the next. But not like this.

But it is college football, where you can also go from wanting to fire the coach to wanting to build a statue for the coach in about two years.

Maybe it’s just a one-year thing, but there seems to be a lot more at play here.

At a school with a world of problems, self-imposing a bowl ban isn’t going to solve anything.