New Orleans ? Now the ball’s in Skip Bertman’s court.

It arrived there when LSU coach Nick Saban, in private, gave LSU’s athletic director the word on Christmas Day: “I’ve accepted the offer from the Miami Dolphins.”

Saban could have given Bertman the word earlier, but he said he wanted to wait until he could go eyeball-to-eyeball with his players, and tell them he was leaving, players he’ll coach for the last time Jan. 1 in Orlando, Fla., in the Capital One Bowl.

Let the record show no AD could have handled a delicate matter with more professionalism than Bertman, a realist who dreaded the day his football coach would receive an offer he couldn’t refuse, and when one came, said all the right things at a time a coach is caught up in making one of those “career decisions.”

Also, let the record show, no college coach, aggressively pursued by an NFL owner, could have done a better job than Saban of playing a game of poker with a billionaire owner well known for his ability to close a deal.

But let me say this: Saban would have been more professional had he made his announcement in Baton Rouge, not in Orlando.

While it’s true Saban is leaving LSU’s football program in far, far better shape then when he set up shop five years ago, the success he enjoyed, and achieved, is a two-way street.

My feeling is he owed Tiger fans a Tigertown farewell, with Bertman and the players at his side, and not at the site of a bowl game that, suddenly, in the eyes of the vast majority of LSU faithful, has lost its significance.

In doing what he did, Saban did not become smaller as a coach, but smaller as a person.

So far as negotiating his first contract as an NFL head coach, however, it can be said Saban was larger than life.

Once Dolphins boss Wayne Huizenga put the ball in Saban’s court, it wasn’t long before the owner realized the coach was dealing from a stacked deck.

“I want this and this and this,” said the coach to someone whose franchise seemed to be screaming for a firm hand.

How so? This is the team that had Ricky Williams, a legend in waiting, who decided he’d rather smoke pot than carry the football.

For Saban, the highest-paid college coach in the first year of an $18.45 million, seven-year contract, the timing could not have been better for a guy who admits, “I’ve always been driven by challenges.”

He’ll be well paid to take the challenge on, an estimated $4.7 million a year over five years.

Now the question is, who will the Tigers hire? An ex-NFL coach that would have caught Bertman’s eye this week, one Steve Spurrier, has signed with South Carolina.

Tommy Tuberville, a coach Auburn wanted to chase out of town last season, once told a friend, “I’d sign with LSU in a heartbeat.” But Tommy, with an unbeaten team that will play in the Sugar Bowl, just agreed to a new contract for big bucks with the school that wanted to let him go.

Louisville’s Bobby Petrino, the coach Auburn wanted, signed a new contract the other day.

Timing. Does it matter?

We’ll see.