BATON ROUGE, La. — Ed Orgeron is a candidate to be LSU’s next head football coach.

Let’s make that point loud and clear.

But let’s also make the point that when an LSU official told the Baton Rouge Advocate that LSU might be ready to take the “interim” off his title before midnight after a hypothetical win over Alabama later this season, he didn’t mean that game was, in and of itself, the barometer Orgeron would be judged by.

The message this source was sending out was simply this: Despite speculation that there was no way LSU would hire from within to replace the fired Les Miles, the rest of this season is really an audition for Orgeron.

He is getting first crack at it, and he started with eight games to prove himself.

That doesn’t mean LSU won’t vet out other options. Just don’t expect the job to be offered to somebody else — even through unofficial headhunter-meets-agent channels — until and unless officials rule out Orgeron first based on how the rest of this season is going.

What will it take for Orgeron to get the permanent job? Some have speculated that nothing short of a national championship would do it (which is a foolish thing to suggest given that LSU might win out, but with the two losses that came before Orgeron became head coach, those might prevent it from the Playoff). Others have made the “Beat Bama” suggestion. Others have gone the other route, saying “beat everybody BUT Bama and he’s in.”

The truth is, there’s going to be a lot more subjectivity to that.

Certainly, if the Tigers win out, it’s going to be hard to deny Coach O the job. But not winning out doesn’t, or at least shouldn’t, eliminate him from contention either.

Wherever the bar might have been set for Orgeron, it needs to be adjusted now.

After the postponement of the Florida game this weekend and SEC commissioner Greg Sankey’s subsequent commitment to making the game happen, the road certainly became more difficult for Orgeron and the Tigers.

There simply is not an option to getting this game rescheduled that would involve some sort of scheduling advantage for LSU. Every single idea would involve a tougher schedule ahead for LSU than the original schedule the Tigers faced.

The most likely option is playing the game Nov. 19, the season’s second-to-final weekend. Both teams play non-conference games that weekend (LSU against South Alabama and Florida against Presbyterian) and would have to cancel those games to accommodate the LSU-Florida game.

That would be a financial hit for both teams — LSU would be on the hook for a $1.5 million guarantee to South Alabama while Florida would be out a half-million dollars to Presbyterian. But the SEC and insurance policies can help with that. The more concerning part for the Tigers is what it does to their schedule.

LSU would finish with three SEC road games at Arkansas, Florida then, on a short week, at Texas A&M on Thanksgiving. There’s a huge difference between playing at home against a Sun Belt Conference team before a short week and playing AT an SEC power before a short week.

That’s not an attractive option.

The other options don’t look viable, but even if they can happen, don’t do much for LSU’s schedule either.

There’s Oct. 29 — just under three weeks from now — when LSU has an open date, but Florida is scheduled to play Georgia in Jacksonville. Both Georgia and Florida are open the previous weekend, meaning it could be bumped back a week to make room for LSU-Florida.

That’s probably not a viable option because moving what they used to call “The World’s Largest Outdoor Cocktail Party” to another weekend would be not just a logistical nightmare, but darn near impossible. It’s not just a game but an event that people make year-round plans for. It’s a tourism boon for Jacksonville, and it requires the reconfiguration of the local NFL stadium to a more college-friendly setup.

It just can’t be moved on short notice.

LSU fans can relate. Local HBCU powers Southern and Grambling willingly disqualify themselves from the FCS playoffs every year by playing the Bayou Classic in New Orleans on the same weekend as the opening week of the playoffs. Some events are too big to be moved, and you can probably count the Georgia-Florida game among them.

Even if it did get moved, what it would do to LSU is put the Florida game the week before LSU hosts Alabama.

That’s hardly a scheduling favor.

The final option? Playing it Dec. 3, the week of the SEC Championship Game.

And yes, that means if either LSU or Florida are in contention for the division title, the SEC title game would have to get bumped back a week.

And while that seems possible — there is no major event scheduled for the Georgia Dome the weekend of Dec. 10, and many of the tickets are reserved for the participating teams — it creates its own set of challenges, namely to the bowl selection and College Football Playoff announcement, which would have to be pushed back.

Basically, the SEC would be asking for the entire postseason process for college football to be delayed because of its inability to get LSU-Florida rescheduled this weekend.

Let’s say the SEC pulls that off. LSU’s stretch run would be at Arkansas, against South Alabama, at Texas A&M and at Florida.

Again, this is no cake walk, far tougher than the original schedule.

So let’s do two things: Let’s brace ourselves for a Nov. 19 LSU-Florida game — that’s the date that logistically makes the most sense — and let’s reconsider how LSU should judge Orgeron.

There is no ideal scenario for how LSU’s schedule should reconfigure for the Florida postponement, and it looks like out of the three options, the worst-case scenario — three tough SEC road games in 13 days — is the most likely.

Does he really need to go undefeated through that stretch to earn the job? What if the Tigers win at Arkansas and Texas A&M (a pretty impressive accomplishment), but then come out flat and get blown out at The Swamp?

Not hiring him based on that wouldn’t be right. Do you think Tom Herman would do any better? Would Nick Saban himself do any better?

Probably not.

So grade Orgeron however you want. It’s a subjective process, for sure.

But after this last week, grade him on the Hurricane Matthew Curve.