LSU’s last trip to the Texas Bowl is looking better and better.

The Tigers lost 42-20 to Kansas State that night of Jan. 4, 2022.

But at least they played the game.

In reality, it wasn’t really even 42-20 close.

But at least the Tigers showed up.

LSU scored two touchdowns in the final 3:35, including an 81-yard touchdown pass on the game’s final play to put some useless lipstick on what had ballooned to a 42-7 deficit.

But the Tigers did play the game, the whole game (officials, not LSU, called it game, set and match after the last touchdown and told the Tigers not to bother with the final extra point attempt; it was getting late anyway).

LSU had only 38 scholarship players available for the game (most still a little wet behind the ears) due to the usual complications — injuries, opt-outs preparing for the NFL draft, transfers, etc.

But what amounted to an LSU JV squad showed up in Houston and gave it the old college try.

LSU played the second half of that season with Ed Orgeron as a lame-duck coach but needed an interim head coach in Brad Davis to play the game — Brian Kelly had been named the next coach, but stayed out of the way and watched his soon-to-be Tigers from a suite high atop NRG Stadium.

But play the game, they did.

They had no quarterback on the depleted roster, so they used a converted wide receiver, Jontre Kirklin under center. “He did the best he could,” Kelly remembered of Kirklin’s night — 7 of 11 with two picks for 138 yards, 81 of them on that final play.

Kirklin didn’t complain. He played the game, even threw three TD passes.

The LSU secondary was pretty well emasculated and it showed. If memory serves, the Tigers’ defense was fair to middling on first and second downs, but K-State’s third-down conversions were basically shooting fish in a barrel.

Still, that secondary gave it their best shot.

So they played a game they had to know they couldn’t win.

Why bother?

The Tigers, who had to upset Texas A&M in their final regular season game just to get bowl eligible at 6-6, accepted the bowl invite and, by golly, they were going to keep their word and play it.

LSU is headed back to Houston again to face Baylor in the Texas Bowl. There are already some opt-outs and portal refugees, and there could be more before the New Year’s Eve kick off.

My guess is that LSU will be there and play regardless.

The Tigers didn’t get any medals for just showing up three years ago, certainly no trophy. I give them credit for it only to bring up this:

Ask the Marshall Thundering Herd what they’ll be doing this holiday bowl season.

If there was any doubt that the current college football landscape has the inmates running the asylum, then hang on tight cuz here we go.

Marshall, the 10-3 Sun Belt Conference champions, accepted a bid to the Independence Bowl in Shreveport to play Army, the champions of the American Athletic Conference.

Then the Thundering Herd opted out of the game. Not a key player here and there. The team went oppo. The news broke during, of all things, the Army-Navy game, that little slice of old-fashioned American pageantry that is apparently staged just to remind us that there is still some semblance of pride and honor and commitment in college football.

So, the Marshall players basically threw a temper tantrum to protest losing their head coach — reports vary on whether Charles Huff was forced out or left on his own; officially it was one of those “mutual decisions” — as he’s already the new head coach at Southern Miss.

At any rate, Marshall took its toys and went home — or, rather, will stay home and pout. How about that for the ol’ can-do spirit? Get your precious, little  feelings hurt and scram.

The plucky (and underrated) Indy Bowl, which thought it had a matchup of two conference champions, was left in a lurch.

That was of no concern to this particular Thundering Herd.

They hit the transfer portal en masse. The actual numbers vary but it was a bunch. Just a hunch here, but once the dust settles and cooler heads prevail, the portal will eventually transport most of them straight back to Huntington, W.V.

Not soon enough to help the Independence Bowl, which had courted them, of course.

Complicating matters, the NCAA was fresh out of teams at 6-6, the normal minimum record for a bowl team.

There is a safety valve for  such situations, of course, one which allows bowls to take the 5-7 team with the highest Academic Progress Rating.

Come on down, Louisiana Tech. The Bulldogs were down the APR pecking order, too, but some others balked and, well, Tech was only an hour from Shreveport.

So maybe it works out. Might even sell more tickets.

Still, the Independence Bowl deserved better and the Marshall team should be ashamed of itself.

No need to worry about Army opting out, of course. At West Point, they don’t really concern themselves with NIL and the other new-age niceties of the game. If the Cadets hit the transfer portal, it might mean shipping out to Iraq or Iran or some other real battlefront.

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Scooter Hobbs covers LSU athletics for the American Press. You can contact him at scooter.hobbs@americanpress.com