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There are many lenses through which to frame the meeting on Saturday between the No. 9 Texas Longhorns and the No. 6 LSU Tigers at Darrell K Royal-Texas Memorial Stadium.
One of the most unkind ways is to view it as an historic opportunity for a program that has struggled in road non-conference games against top opponents:
No. 6 @LSUfootball is seeking to do something the team has never done before ... beat an AP Top-10-ranked non-conference opponent on the road.
— SportsCenter (@SportsCenter) September 4, 2019
The Tigers are 0-11 all time in such games, but have a chance to end the streak against No. 9 Texas on Saturday. #SCFacts pic.twitter.com/gYQbaqAKIy
There are perhaps significant limits to the utility of that stat — SEC programs don’t typically schedule non-conference road games against opponents that have a chance to receive an AP ranking before the season or early in the season, with all of those games in the last decade happening at neutral sites.
In fact, it appears that the last game that would even qualify for inclusion as facing a ranked opponent in a true road game happened in 2005 when LSU beat Arizona State in Tempe. The last game against a top-10 opponent on the road was a loss to No. 10 Notre Dame in 1998.
So this is a highly unusual situation for the Tigers, as the scheduling philosophy in Baton Rouge hasn’t resulted in a road game like this in more than two decades.