LSU won’t have to travel far for its bowl game and the Tigers will find a familiar face when they get to Houston.

LSU was placed in the Kinder’s Texas Bowl for the New Year’s Eve game at NRG Stadium against Baylor. It will kick off at 2:30 p.m. on ESPN.

The Bears (8-4) are coached by Dave Aranda, who was LSU’s defensive coordinator for the Tigers’ 2019 national championship team. He took the Baylor job shortly after LSU completed that season unbeaten. Aranda and Baylor won the Big 12 championship in 2021, but he was very much on the hot seat after going 3-9 last year and starting this season 2-4 before Baylor finished on a six-game winning streak.

The Tigers, also 8-4, at one point were ranked No. 8 in the country, but fell down the bowl season’s pecking order with a three-game losing streak. They recovered, however, to win their final two games against Vanderbilt and Oklahoma.

As always in the current climate, bowl opt-outs could play a factor in the game.

LSU has had several non-starters announce they will enter the transfer portal, which opens Monday.

Two others, left tackle Will Campbell and tight end Mason Taylor, have declared they’ll enter the NFL draft early. But neither has indicated whether they will play in the bowl game.

Quarterback Garrett Nussmeier has not yet made a decision on the NFL, but said after the win over Oklahoma that he would play in the bowl game regardless.

It will be LSU’s third trip to the Texas Bowl — with very different results thus far.

Opt-outs were a major factor the last time LSU played in the Texas bowl following the 2021 season. The Tigers had an interim head coach in Brad Davis after the firing of Ed Orgeron and only 38 scholarship players available in a 42-20 loss to Kansas State. LSU used a converted backup wide receiver, Jontre Kirklin, at quarterback.

LSU’s other Texas Bowl appearance was following the 2016 season when the Tigers won a very entertaining game, 56-27, over a Texas Tech team led by Patrick Mahomes.

It was shortly after that game that LSU then under Les Miles, lost defensive coordinator Kevin Steele, which brought Aranda to Baton Rouge from Wisconsin.

LSU leads the all-time series with Baylor 8-3, but two of the Tigers’ losses came in the only two bowl matchups between the schools.

Baylor beat LSU 21-7 in the 1985 Liberty Bowl in Memphis and 14-7 in the 1963 Bluebonnet Bowl in Houston.

Previous to the Liberty Bowl, the last meeting was a 31-10 LSU victory in Baton Rouge.