The season is only three weeks old, but LSU has thrust itself into a much more prominent role in the SEC West and College Football Playoff races.

The Tigers were at best an afterthought in both as they began the season ranked No. 25 – behind three SEC West rivals – because of a mostly inexperienced team that had drawn a really challenging schedule.

Now they have only three more games of seasoning and Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi State and other challenging opponents still await. But after beating preseason No. 8 Miami in the season opener and squeaking past No. 7 Auburn on the road last Saturday, LSU has climbed to No. 6.

That puts it in the thick of the CFP race ahead of teams more highly regarded in the preseason such as, well, Miami and Auburn, as well as Wisconsin, Washington, Michigan State, Michigan, USC, TCU, Florida State, Boise State and Texas, all of whom have lost at least once.

The Tigers have also have given themselves a de facto two-game lead on Auburn in the SEC West race.

Now there’s a long way to go in both races and it wouldn’t be surprising if LSU still wound up with two or more SEC losses. But the notion that the Tigers could be flirting with a .500 record at season’s end is starting to fade.

LSU coach Ed Orgeron wisely pointed out Monday that being ranked in the Top 10 didn’t do Miami or Auburn any good when they played LSU and being ranked in the Top 10 isn’t going to do LSU any good when it plays Louisiana Tech on Saturday night in Tiger Stadium – or anyone else.

But the Tigers’ ascension is significant in a variety of ways.

First and foremost it shows that this a good team, a better team than most had expected to be, and a team perhaps capable of something special.

Along those same lines, it means that anyone antsy to stick Orgeron on the proverbial coaching hot seat will at least for the time being have to find a candidate elsewhere – like in Tallahassee, Los Angeles, or even Ann Arbor.

It means when LSU does lose, and it’s going to happen, the fall won’t be out of the Top 25, maybe not even out of the Top 10, depending on the opponent, score and circumstances. So the Tigers can lose one and still be relevant.

The funny thing about LSU’s rapid rise in the polls is that the Tigers’ performance through three games – the 33-17 victory over Miami, a 31-0 sparring match with Southeastern Louisiana and the 22-21 walk-off at Auburn – isn’t all that inconsistent with the modest preseason expectations that were the conventional wisdom a few short weeks ago.

The expectation was that the preseason No. 25 Tigers would be young, but really good on defense, really young on an offense featuring uncertainty at all of the skill positions, and hopeful nut unsure if the new kicker would prove to be an upgrade.

The 3-0 and No. 6 Tigers are young, but really good on defense. Joe Burrow has established himself as a leader at quarterback and he has made clutch plays in each game, but whether he’s ready to help lead this team to victory against Alabama or Georgia or Mississippi State is essentially as uncertain as ever.

Nick Brossette has broken from the pack as the lead runner, but he’s certainly not another Leonard Fournette and there’s no reason to think he’s another Derrius Guice. That’s nothing against Brossette, it just means that nothing in the first three weeks suggests the running game is going to be significantly better than preseason expectations.

As for the wide receivers, a handful have made one or two big plays. But they’re just like Burrow – good enough so far but still trying to evolve into something significantly better than what was expected going into the season.

Cole Tracy, though, has proven to be the significant upgrade at kicker that Orgeron was seeking. He made the Miami game a lot easier than it could have been by making all four of his field-goal attempts and we all know he came through at the end of the Auburn game.

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The glass-is-half-empty way of looking at this is that the Tigers are who we thought they were and it’s just a matter off time before they get exposed as something less than a national contender.

And that may well prove to be true.

The glass-is-half-full way of looking at this is that the Tigers already have beaten two of the teams that many had them losing to and all these young players are only going to get better.

They still have this week’s game and another home game against Ole Miss to evolve before hitting the heart of the schedule (at Florida and a three-game home-stand against Georgia, Mississippi State and Alabama).

Maybe this ascension is just the beginning of something totally unexpected.

That might be far-fetched, but a 3-0 start and a No. 6 ranking in mid-September was pretty far-fetched too, wasn’t it?