Coming into the season, I picked LSU to finish fourth in the West. Most of my colleagues in the business had higher expectations.

Two games into the schedule, I wondered if I was wrong. The Tigers shut out BYU 27-0 on a neutral field and blew the doors off Chattanooga 45-10 in their home opener at Death Valley. The offense was efficient, and the defense was stingy.

But then the Bayou Bengals got burned in Week 3 at Mississippi State 37-7 in what was an abysmal showing on both sides of the ball. Neither the running game nor passing game topped 137 yards — they had one play of 20-plus in four full quarters of frustration — and the defense had no answer for Bulldogs quarterback Nick Fitzgerald.

Even if coach Ed Orgeron has a chance to right the ship Saturday vs. Syracuse, Baton Rouge is already suffering from déjà vu.

In particular, the passing game doesn’t seem to have made any progress under new offensive coordinator Matt Canada. One of the highest-paid assistant coaches in the nation, he came to LSU with a reputation as a bit of a QB whisperer.

However, Danny Etling looks like the same Danny Etling. He didn’t have to do much in the BYU and Chattanooga contests — he was a combined 22-of-31 passing for 398 yards with 1 touchdown and 0 interceptions — with the ground assault doing most of the heavy lifting. The Tigers were able to overpower the Cougars and Mocs in the trenches.

That wasn’t the case at Davis Wade Stadium, though. Etling was just 13-of-29 for 137 yards and never mounted anything resembling a comeback.

“I understand,” Orgeron said Wednesday on the weekly SEC coaches teleconference. “I definitely get it. I understand the expectation at LSU. It was a bad performance. I totally take the blame. I’m gonna get this team right. We’re gonna continue. We’ll set a course.”

D.J. Chark is dangerous and averages 20.3 yards per catch, but the rest of the receiving corps has been statistically insignificant.

Pink-slipped coach Les Miles isn’t around anymore to be the punching bag. Neither is convenient scapegoat Cam Cameron, the former OC. No more excuses about the system being outdated, predictable and hopelessly out of balance.

While Canada has done what he can to introduce a 21st century scheme — more shifts and motions, more three- and four-wide sets, more tempo — it doesn’t change the fact that Etling is a mediocre talent who doesn’t have enough weapons around him to be successful. He’s simply not a difference maker and can’t elevate a weak supporting cast.

D.J. Chark is dangerous and averages 20.3 yards per catch, but the rest of the receiving corps has been statistically insignificant.

“We’re gonna take it one game at a time, but I can totally understand the disappointment,” Orgeron said. “I can totally understand their frustration. This is not LSU football, and that’s not what we came here for, but we’re gonna get it fixed.”

Credit: Derick E. Hingle-USA TODAY Sports

Making matters worse, running back Derrius Guice (above) is now banged up and won’t play in Week 4. One of the top candidates for the Heisman Trophy coming into 2017, he’s averaging a career-low 5.3 yards per carry and isn’t ripping off long runs.

His story is unfolding eerily similar to Leonard Fournette’s a year ago. Fournette was also considered a leading contender for the Heisman following a sensational sophomore campaign. Instead, he was in and out of the lineup due to injury — opening the door for Guice to make a name for himself — and never took the Tigers anywhere of consequence.

"I think that the key to all of us is to stay confident. We have a good football team. Stay the course." -- Ed Orgeron

Still, the problems on offense run deeper than not having enough bullets to fire. The Bayou Bengals didn’t look ready to play against MSU.

“Stay the course,” Orgeron said. “Go back and look at your preparation, which we did. Look at your team courage, see if they were up to your standards. Fix some things. Get a new game plan. That wasn’t correct. Look at the stuff on tape that they did against you this week because you’ll see it again. And just the preparation, overall preparation.”

More than likely, LSU will take care of business Saturday and dispose of Syracuse. Seven days later, Troy waltzes into Tiger Stadium and should be even more overmatched. Those are two opportunities to really dent the scoreboard and pretend like everything’s fine.

But starting in Week 7, the Tigers face Florida, Auburn, Ole Miss, Alabama, Arkansas, Tennessee and Texas A&M consecutively to finish out the regular-season schedule. Four of those seven dates are on the road — including Nov. 4 in Tuscaloosa following a bye — after only one trip outside the Pelican State in their first five matchups.

It’s going to take more than duct tape and bubble gum in the Syracuse and Troy games to repair what remains a broken offense.

“I think that the key to all of us is to stay confident,” Orgeron said. “We have a good football team. Stay the course.”

Orgeron did fine work taking over for Miles last year on an interim basis, so much so that he was given the honor of being named full-time head coach. Nevertheless, let’s not forget that he wasn’t the administration’s first choice.

Yes, people close to this program have a lot invested in him and need him to succeed in the worst way. He’s a local. He wanted the job for all the right reasons. He’s a monster on the recruiting trail — a ton of blue-chip prospects are in his back yard, too. But it’s going to take more than a familiar accent to turn around the Bayou Bengals.

To paraphrase The Who, “Meet the new LSU, same as the old LSU.” It appears that some of us were indeed fooled again.