• Preview
• Recap
• Bleachers

LSU hosts Arkansas in regular-season finale

Nov 23, 2007 - 11:32 AM Arkansas (7-4) at LSU (10-1) 2:30 pm EST

BATON ROUGE, Louisiana (Ticker) -- Two is the magic number for top-ranked Louisiana State. Two more wins, and the Tigers will play in the national championship game for the second time in the last four years.

LSU, which tops the Bowl Championship Series standings for the second straight week, hosts Arkansas on Friday in its regular-season finale.

The following week, the Tigers face Tennessee or Georgia in the Southeastern Conference title game.

Last week, LSU (10-1, 6-1 SEC West) defeated Mississippi, 41-24, to reach 10 wins in three straight seasons for the first time in the program's history.

The victory also enabled the Tigers, whose only loss came at Kentucky in overtime, to clinch their first outright SEC West crown.

While LSU hopes to keep alive its national championship aspirations, one of the story lines for this game is the status of the two coaches.

There has been some talk that LSU coach Les Miles, a Michigan graduate, could be interested in replacing Lloyd Carr at his alma mater. Miles has done nothing to tone down that speculation.

Houston Nutt reportedly is out as Arkansas coach even if the Razorbacks (7-4, 3-4 SEC West) upset LSU.

"All you want to do is coach football," Nutt said. "One of my dreams has been to coach at the University of Arkansas and I've had the privilege to do it for 10 years. I'm very thankful for that. All I want to do is concentrate on LSU."

The Razorbacks are coming off a 45-31 victory over Mississippi State.

LSU has won its last four meetings with Arkansas and is 33-17-2 all-time against the Razorbacks.