TJ Finley wasn’t going to start for LSU this season.

But he might start against LSU on Saturday.

The life of a college football player can change quickly thanks to the NCAA transfer portal.

Finley knew at the end of spring practice that he had fallen behind Myles Brennan and Max Johnson on the LSU quarterback depth chart.

So he entered the transfer portal, selected Auburn as his team and 3 1/2 games later, with Bo Nix struggling and his new team staring in the face of a potential loss Georgia State, Finley was on the field for most of the second half in Jordan-Hare Stadium last Saturday.

Finley engineered a 98-yard touchdown drive, finishing it with a 10-yard go-ahead touchdown pass on 4th-and-9 with less than a minute remaining.

Auburn escaped with a 34-24 victory that looks easier than it was thanks to a very late pick-6.

“TJ came in there and what a tremendous job he did to come in there and win the game,” LSU coach Ed Orgeron said. “Made some tremendous plays, is a great young man, great young quarterback.”

And thanks to Finley, first-year coach Bryan Harsin avoided what would have been a red-flag loss, Auburn improved to 3-1 and Finley’s current team is ranked No. 22 going into its SEC opener against his 3-1 former team.

Orgeron has been effusive in his praise of Finley, who left LSU on good terms, but Harsin has been non-committal about whether he will start Finley or Nix and about whether he plans to play both regardless of who starts.

Still, it’s difficult to imagine the new coach not giving the new highly regarded quarterback playing time.

Finley’s evolving role at Auburn bears some resemblance to the evolving role he experienced as a freshman at LSU last season.

He and Johnson arrived as true freshmen trying to beat our 4th-year junior Brennan to be the successor to Heisman Trophy winner Joe Burrow.

Brennan won the job as expected and played very well for 3 games before being sidelined for the season by injury.

Finley and Johnson battled for 2 weeks for the opportunity to replace Brennan because a hurricane forced the postponement of the game against Florida, and Finley was tabbed to start against South Carolina in Tiger Stadium.

Orgeron went into the game planning to let the 2 freshmen share the quarterback duties, but Finley played so well that Johnson was relegated to mop-up duty and didn’t throw a pass in a 52-24 romp. Finley completed 17-of-21 passes for 265 yards with 2 touchdowns and 1 interception.

“He was on fire,” Orgeron recalled.

The next week LSU played at Auburn on Halloween. It was Finley’s first road game as the starter. His second performance was as bad as his first one was good.

He lost a fumble that Auburn returned for a touchdown and threw 2 interceptions. All of that happened while Auburn, after a scoreless first quarter for both teams, was scoring 41 points in the second and third quarters of what turned into a 48-11 thrashing.

Johnson relieved Finley and produced the only LSU touchdown, but didn’t distinguish himself enough to supplant Finley as the starter.

Finley was efficient and the LSU run game rolled in a win at Arkansas before Johnson replaced a struggling Finley during losses to Alabama and Texas A&M.

Orgeron turned to Johnson as his starter for the last 2 games against Florida and Ole Miss and Johnson played very well in consecutive victories.

So LSU entered spring practice with a healthy Brennan and Johnson as the starter of record who was trending upward. Finley was still in the mix, but when spring ended he was clearly behind the other 2 and facing a more limited opportunity in preseason camp than he had in spring practice to try and change the depth chart.

Finley was a 4-star recruit from Ponchatoula High School, a mere 50 miles from Tiger Stadium. He signed with LSU to play for his state’s flagship football program, which he had admired his whole life.

But suddenly he realized that after starting 5 games as a freshman he couldn’t see start No. 6 on the horizon.

“TJ came and talked to me like a man in my office,” Orgeron said. “He didn’t want to leave. He was crying and LSU meant a lot to him, but it was a decision that was made that was best for him.”

Orgeron likened facing Finley this Saturday to facing his son, Cody, who quarterbacked McNeese State against LSU 3 weeks ago in Tiger Stadium.

“We wish him the best,” Orgeron said. “TJ is always going to be a part of our family.”