BATON ROUGE, La. – A spot in the College Football playoff may be a long shot, but No. 10 LSU is still hoping for a marquee bowl berth when the regular season is finished. The Tigers will need to avoid looking ahead to their SEC finale at Texas A&M and focus this week on Saturday's final non-conference test against visiting Rice.
TV: 7:30 p.m. ET, ESPNU. LINE: LSU -42
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LSU was No. 3 in the initial CFP rankings before getting shut out by Alabama at home, and last weekend's 24-17 triumph at Arkansas was not the kind of victory that was going to catapult it past one-loss schools from major conferences. "You know what? We won the football game," Tigers coach Ed Orgeron told reporters after the win. "We have some things we can get better at, but I'm so pleased with the win. This was a hard place to come out and play. Tough circumstances for our football team. We gutted it out. We won." LSU's players were less thrilled about the result and were excited to get back to practice to work on improving an offense that underwhelmed in each of the past two weeks. That could be bad news for the Owls, who have dropped their last 10 games and are 117th out of 130 FBS teams in scoring defense while allowing an average of 37.5 points.
ABOUT RICE (1-10)
The Owls suffered the embarrassment of allowing UTEP to break a 20-game losing streak on Nov. 3 and followed that up with a 28-13 loss at Louisiana Tech last weekend. Senior quarterback Shawn Stankavage threw three interceptions in the most recent setback while trying to spark an offense that averages 20.9 points - 124th in the FBS. Austin Walter is doing his part to get the offense moving and switched from running back to wide receiver in the last two games, finishing last week's contest with five receptions for 101 yards and a touchdown.
ABOUT LSU (8-2)
Quarterback Joe Burrow suffered through a rough performance in the loss to Alabama, completing 18-of-35 passes for 184 yards and an interception, and was much more efficient at Arkansas. The junior completed 15-of-21 passes from 195 yards, one touchdown and no interceptions in the win but remained unhappy with the overall performance of his offense. "It felt like we were sluggish," Burrow told reporters. "It felt like we got complacent, felt like - it just felt sluggish out there. I don’t really know what it was."
EXTRA POINTS
1. LSU's defense is second in the FBS with 16 interceptions.
2. Rice has not beaten a ranked team since 1997.
3. The Tigers are bowl eligible for the 19th straight season.
PREDICTION: LSU 65, Rice 10