As the holiday season draws near, LSU fans must now factor wins and losses into their vacation plans.Saturday’s loss to Alabama is important for LSU’s destination in college football’s bowl season. The Tigers will likely not be playing their bowl game in Louisiana for the first time since 2005. Second, LSU is all but eliminated from the Bowl Championship Series.Saturday’s loss mathematically eliminates LSU from the Southeastern Conference Championship game. The Tigers are also ranked outside the No. 14 ranking the NCAA requires for BCS bowl consideration. Verge Ausberry, senior associated athletic director, said the Tigers fit “really well” into the Cotton Bowl.”This is all guessing right now, but LSU fits really well into the Cotton Bowl,” Ausberry said. “The Outback Bowl would probably take South Carolina or another East Coast team. But until the games are played and everything is finalized, we control our own destiny.”An SEC team with more than two losses that didn’t win the SEC championship has never gained a BCS bowl bid. And Ausberry said he can’t see Georgia, which is No. 10 in the BCS, jumping Florida or Alabama, which are No. 4 and No. 1, respectively.”I’ll pay a lot of attention to whether [the SEC] gets two BCS teams like we did last year, because that would move everyone up,” he said.Besides Dallas, Tiger fans might also turn their attention to Atlanta, Orlando, Fla. and Tampa Bay, Fla., the homes of the Chick-fil-A, Capital One and Outback bowls, respectively.In case fans have forgotten during the Tigers’ two-year BCS stint, the selection process for those games works quite differently than that of the BCS. “The Capital One (second), will then make its pick following the BCS selections,” according to the SEC’s official Web site. “The bowl must select the team with the next best overall record or a team within one win of the team with the next best overall record.”The Cotton, Outback and Chick-fil-A bowls have selections three through five, with the Cotton Bowl having first preference of teams in the SEC’s Western Division, like LSU. Ausberry said the SEC championship determines the bowl pecking order for the entire conference, regardless of who plays in the title game,.”I’ll be at the SEC Championship game, and you meet with a lot of the bowl guys and get the feel of it,” he said. “That game determines where you go in the system. It’s a politicking thing — we’ve done well in bowl games, and we sell a lot of tickets to away games, and you’re just trying to keep your team in the mix.”Ausberry said the Tigers must first win their three remaining games, which would give them a 9-3 regular season record. Then the best-case scenario for LSU would be for two SEC teams to once again qualify for the BCS, bumping the Tigers higher in the conference’s bowl selection order. Invitations for bowl games are extended Dec. 7, the day after the SEC Championship game.The SEC currently has nine tie-ins with postseason bowl games, but that number increases to 10 if an SEC team qualifies for the national championship game.—-Contact David Helman [email protected]