So what exactly did we learn from LSU’s 42-10 victory over Rice on Saturday night?

Exactly nothing.

In fact, unless the seventh-ranked Tigers had somehow lost or at least allowed the 1-10 Owls to hang around into the fourth quarter, we never were going to learn anything. We knew that the moment the game was scheduled.

But we can learn a lot about LSU this week.

It’s playing Texas A&M – an SEC opponent, one with comparable talent, and the game is on the road.

You know all the obvious things that the Tigers have to play for – a 10-win season, New Year’s 6 bowl bid, keeping alive its flickering hopes of sneaking into the CFP if a whole lot of weird stuff happens to teams above them.

But there’s something else LSU can focus on this week. It lies somewhere between the weekly task of preparing to play your best against whichever opponent and those other possibilities that have been rehashed for a couple of weeks.

It’s an opportunity to finish in sole possession of second place in the SEC West.

It’s an opportunity to finish the season having beat every SEC West opponent not named Alabama.

It’s an opportunity to show that Ed Orgeron’s program is farther along than Jimbo Fisher’s, which it should be because Orgeron had a headstart.

It’s an opportunity to show the best high-school players in Louisiana, Texas and elsewhere in the neighborhood that they’ll be joining a better program and they’ll have more success if they choose to become a Tiger instead of an Aggie.

Let’s face it.

Right now the SEC West, just like the SEC as a whole and practically all of college football, is divided into Alabama and everyone else.

So first things first.

The first step is to establish yourself as the primary competitor to Alabama. Then you can focus on catching the Crimson Tide. Besides, separating yourself from the other competitors is part of chasing the top dog.

A&M paid Fisher a gazillion dollars because the program wants him to make the Aggies what Alabama is. But Alabama is a lot different from what Fisher inherited.

He has to start by coaching and recruiting his tail off to establish that A&M is better than Arkansas, Ole Miss, Mississippi State, Auburn and LSU. Then it’ll be easier to take aim at the top dog.

LSU is in the same position. Orgeron is completing his second full season, knowing he still has a long way to go before he can consider his team the equal of Alabama.

But – partly because of what he inherited from Les Miles and partly because of what he, his staff and his players have done in the past 26 months – it’s clear that the Tigers are superior to Arkansas and Ole Miss.

It’s hard to say whether his program is better than Auburn and Mississippi State, but LSU beat both this season and will finish ahead of both of them in the SEC West regardless of what happens in College Station on Saturday.

So at the very least the Tigers will have a leg up on them going into the offseason and preparing for the 2019 season.

A win against A&M puts LSU a full two games ahead of its nearest competition in the division.

But if the Tigers lose this one, A&M will tie LSU for second and LSU will be the de facto third-place team because of the head-to-head loss.

Yeah, a win would give LSU 10 this season and send the Tigers to some notable place like the Fiesta Bowl, Sugar Bowl or Peach Bowl.

That’s all good stuff.

But so is providing evidence that it’s climbing the SEC West ladder and its next target is the top.