If the Arkansas Razorbacks want to play in a Bowl Championship Series game, they better beat Florida next week.

Arkansas’ chances of being an at-large team in the BCS likely ended with LSU’s 31-26 victory over the Razorbacks on Friday before a packed house of 55, 833 fans at War Memorial Stadium in Little Rock.

The guys in the colorful blazers from the Orange and Fiesta bowls visited with Arkansas Coach Houston Nutt after the game, but it’s hard to see the Razorbacks (10-2, 7-1 SEC ) getting an at-large bid to those games if they lose to Florida to suffer back-to-back defeats.

The winner of the Arkansas-Florida matchup in next Saturday’s SEC Championship Game in Atlanta gets an automatic BCS bid and likely will play in the Sugar Bowl.

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If the Razorbacks lose to Florida, they could be playing in the Cotton Bowl, though the Capital One Bowl remains a possibility.

“I know we’ll be playing in a January bowl game,” Nutt said. “I don’t know where, but I know that much.”

A victory over LSU (10-2, 6-2 ) might have guaranteed a BCS atlarge spot for the Razorbacks, but Arkansas couldn’t come all the way back after falling behind 31-19 when Tigers freshman Trindon Holliday returned a kickoff 92 yards for a touchdown with 10: 14 left.

The Razorbacks kicked off to Holliday after an 80-yard touchdown run by Darren McFadden had cut the Tigers’ lead to 24-19.

“Our defense was so geared up and telling me, ‘Coach, tell the offense to get ready to go in three plays,’” Nutt said. “Then [Holliday’s return ] knocks the air out of you.”

A 62-yard kickoff return by Felix Jones re-energized the Razorbacks and the crowd, and they scored a touchdown on Jones’ 5-yard run to make it 31-26 with 4: 53 left.

Arkansas still had all three of its timeouts and enough time to mount a rally if its defense stopped the Tigers.

The Razorbacks forced a punt and got the ball back at their 27 with 2: 04 left, but had used all of their timeouts by then.

Needing a touchdown to win, the Razorbacks resorted to the pass.

Arkansas sophomore quarterback Casey Dick, under heavy pressure from the Tigers’ defense, threw four consecutive incompletions to finish 3 of 17 for 20 yards in the game, and LSU took possession and

Nutt said it was frustrating not to be able to hand the ball to McFadden and Jones with the game on the line. The two Arkansas backs combined to rush for 324 yards.

“You don’t like to have to play that way. That’s not our game,” Nutt said. “We don’t like to come from behind. We’d much rather be trying to eat up the clock and make first downs. That’s our game.

“ We’ve got to get better at that [passing ] part of it.”

LSU ended Arkansas’ 10-game winning streak. The Razorbacks hadn’t lost since the season opener to Southern California, 50-14, on Sept. 2.

“It’s a real bitter feeling when you haven’t lost in so long,” said McFadden, who rushed 21 times for 182 yards and 2 touchdowns. “But we’ll come back. We’re still the SEC West champs.”

LSU won the SEC West title last year, and afterward, the Tigers sounded as if they had repeated.

was our game, LSU junior receiver Early Doucet said. “And I felt we showed everybody today that we’re the real SEC West champs.” LSU put itself in strong contention for a BCS at-large bid by winning its sixth consecutive game. “I think we’ve made a case for the BCS, certainly,” Tigers Coach Les Miles said. “I think we made a case that we’re one of the best in this conference. “ If you were picking the best team, we would have something to talk about.” Nutt talked about how proud he was of the Razorbacks after the game. “We showed the reason we’re going to Atlanta,” Nutt said. “We’ve got great heart and great fight.” Nutt said he’d “love to have a couple of plays back,” referring to Holliday’s touchdown return and LSU safety LaRon Landry’s interception of a Dick pass that gave the Tigers possession at the Arkansas 9 and set up JaMarcus Russell’s 7-yard touchdown pass to Doucet for a 24-12 lead with 10: 59 left in the game.

Another key play came at the 13: 47 mark of the fourth quarter when defensive ends Glenn Dorsey and Ricky Jean-Francois sacked Dick for a 15-yard loss on fourth-and-3 from LSU 41.

Nutt was asked why he didn’t put the ball in McFadden’s hands on the fourthand-short situation, especially at quarterback where he’s been so effective in Arkansas’ “Wildcat” package.

“That’s easy to say after the fact,” Nutt said. “We know [McFadden ] is going to get his carries. We’re going to get him the ball. We gave it to him quite a bit today.”

Nutt said that on the ill-fated fourthdown play, the coaches believed wide receiver Marcus Monk would be in single coverage, but that right before the snap, Landry doubled him up.

“We thought we’d have a good, easy

,. timeout when the safety rolled down, but it was too late.” Dick was sacked twice after the Razorbacks had allowed just six sacks in the previous 11 games. “They’re big. They’re fast. They’re physical,” Dick said. “They’re everything you want in a defense.” The Razorbacks moved remarkably fast against LSU’s defense on their opening possession, driving 80 yards — including Jones’ 40-yard run on a reverse and McFadden’s 28-yard pass to Robert Johnson — in six plays, capped by McFadden’s 1-yard touchdown run.

But Jeremy Davis missed the extra point wide left, keeping the score 6-0, and that came back to bite Arkansas.

Without the missed extra point, the Razorbacks might have been trailing 31-28 on their final possession and could have sent the game into overtime with a field goal instead of having to go 73 yards for a touchdown.

It was the first time the Razorbacks had trailed late in a game since they beat Alabama 24-23 in overtime on Sept. 23.

Playing with a lead and grinding down teams with McFadden and Jones is how the Razorbacks won 10 in a row.

“Hopefully, we won’t be in that situation again, having to come from behind at

, Parker said. “ That’s our bread-and-butter to give the ball to Darren and Felix. “ Our philosophy is to pound people.” Now the Razorbacks find themselves needing to bounce back from their first loss in nearly three months to get ready to play Florida for the SEC championship. “It hurts a lot to lose to LSU,” Arkansas junior end Jamaal Anderson said. “But we’ve still got a chance to make history by winning the SEC championship and going to a BCS bowl. “ We’ll get over this and we’ll be ready next week.”