The question perhaps is not so much if embattled President Trump will be warmly received at Saturday’s college football showdown in Tuscaloosa.

Instead, maybe the question is if Trump – fighting an impeachment inquiry threatening his presidency -- is searching for the cheers after getting booed at a World Series game last month and a mixed reaction at a UFC event last weekend.

If not for the, at best, lukewarm reaction at those two sporting events, would Trump be traveling to see No. 1 LSU play No. 2 Alabama? And at an event where he figures to receive overwhelming cheers?

Jess Brown, a retired political science professor at Athens State University, began his answer with, "We'll never know." But he speculated that, yes, two mediocre receptions pushed Trump in search of a definitive avalanche of cheers.

"I think they were looking for a high-profile venue where he would get cheers and he would get no mixed response or boos," Brown said Monday. "And I'll be surprised if a stadium filled with Alabama-LSU football fans, I think Donald Trump will be in an environment that's as safe as it's going to get politically for him."

U.S. Rep. Bradley Byrne, a Republican from Fairhope who is running for Senate and is a staunch Trump supporter, said the president will even give common ground to two rival fan bases.

"He'll be cheered," Byrne said Tuesday. "He'll be cheered in Alabama. He'll be cheered by Alabama and LSU fans. I don’t have any question about that. We really support President Trump here in Alabama and he's going to find a warm and friendly group of people there at Bryant-Denny Stadium."

It is, of course, the inevitable sport of speculation. Will sports fans cheer or boo a former player now wearing another team's uniform? And it's only amplified for politicians in a public setting where an audience is there to respond to what they see.

And amplify it again for a president.

It didn’t begin and won’t end with Trump. The Washington Post traced back almost 100 years to Herbert Hoover being booed at a baseball game in Philadelphia in 1931. Harry Truman was largely booed in 1951 at a baseball game in Washington.

More recently, George W. Bush was booed at the 1992 all-star baseball game in San Diego. And Barack Obama heard some boos in St. Louis at the 2009 all-star game in St. Louis.

The Associated Press, in a story last month, quoted presidential author and former Bush speechwriter Curt Smith about presidents attending sporting events.

“It’ll be loud for Trump but every president gets booed: both Bushes, Reagan, Nixon," Smith said ahead of Trump attending the World Series. "When Americans pay for their ticket, most of them buy into the great American tradition to boo whomever they want,”.

In Alabama, though, Trump may have found the exception. The state backed him with 63 percent of its vote in 2016 and the state is widely considered perhaps the most Republican state in the country. There are no statewide Democratic office holders in Montgomery and Democrat Doug Jones narrowly won his seat in the U.S. Senate over Republican Roy Moore, who was fighting accusations of having had sexual relations with a 14-year-old girl. Moore has repeatedly denied those allegations.

And Jones is considered the most vulnerable Democratic senator in the 2020 election cycle.

"So he's going to be in the most friendly locale possible," Brown said of Trump's Alabama visit. "And in light of two events he's had recently, he's probably going to want to get himself in an environment where he's virtually ensured that he's getting cheers instead of boos."

To Byrne, it only makes sense that Trump would want to attend. After all, who wouldn't?

"This is like the game," the congressman said at a campaign stop in Huntsville. "No. 1 vs. No. 2. Two states that are very strongly supportive of him. He's going to be greeted very warmly when he comes into that stadium. So I can see why he would want to do it. Everybody in America would like to be in that stadium. I think it's good for Alabama that he's coming."

But this is not about politics in Alabama or Louisiana, where Brown said Trump is "maxed out" on support.

“It’s for national consumption,” Brown said of the game that will be televised nationally by CBS. “It is not for Alabama-LSU. It’s a good opportunity because it’s No. 1 vs. No. 2 and he’s in a politically safe environment. He’s going to be in an environment that’s about as a safe as he can go to.”