BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) -- Houston hit Tiger Stadium Saturday night thinking of the game against LSU as their bowl. They left with a 20-7 victory and thinking they might actually be headed to postseason play.

"I felt all year long the only ones stopping us were ourselves," said Ketric Sanford, who rushed for 105 yards and a touchdown and had another 28 yards in receptions. "I felt we could play with the best of them if we didn't make mistakes and we didn't make any mistakes."

LSU made enough mistakes to hit its longest losing streak in the 106 years they've played football.

Houston's 20-7 victory Saturday night was LSU's (2-8) eighth straight loss as the Tigers have alternated between being blown out and narrow, last-minute losses.

After back-to-back 3-8 records, Houston (6-4) hoped to boost its chances of playing in a bowl game with a win over a Southeastern Conference team, even one struggling as much as LSU.

"First of all we are the 10th ranked defensive team in the country, so we're not all that bad ourselves," said Houston coach Kim Helton. "We have some talent."

LSU's only victories this season came over non-SEC schools in the first two games of the season.

"Coach DiNardo tried to stress to us the point that that was a Conference USA team," said LSU safety Ryan Clark. "I guess we didn't take heed of that and they beat us."

Sanford, a powerful runner with slippery moves, began pounding the Tigers early and rushed the ball 27 times in the game. His partner in the backfield, Mike Green, was also effective running the football, gaining 64 yards on 20 carries.

Houston controlled the ball for 37:03 minutes compared to 22:57 for the Tigers.

"We had one long drive that lasted about a day," said Helton.

The once powerful LSU rushing game again came up short, finishing with just 31 net yards. Rondell Mealey, who had amassed just 509 rushing yards through nine games, put LSU up 7-0 in the first quarter with a 39-yard scoring rush. The Tigers had 43 yards rushing in their first possession, 46 in the first quarter, 43 at halftime.

"As far as things we did wrong, we struggled in stopping their run," LSU coach Gerry DiNardo said. "We were inconsistent on offense, and we have to play harder than we did."

Houston evened the score with a 24-yard touchdown pass to Scott Regimbald that made it 7-7 in the first quarter. The Cougars moved to a 17-7 halftime lead on a 22-yard field by Mike Clark and a 10-yard touchdown run by Ketric Sanford with 1:10 left in the half.

Sanford's touchdown, his 11th of the season and 27th of this career, came after a holding call against LSU nullified an interception that would have given the Tigers the football on their 24-yard line. Instead a 10-yard penalty gave Houston the ball back and first down on the LSU'14-yard line. Two plays later, Sanford scored.

Clark capped a 50-yard drive with a 29-yard field goal that stretched Houston's lead to 20-7 with 6:33 left in the third quarter.

Houston quarterback Jason McKinley completed 19 of 27 for 203 yards and a touchdown.

Josh Booty completed 20 of 34 for 213 and was intercepted two times. Rohan Davey who came in late in the fourth quarter, completed 4 of 9 for 83 yards and was intercepted twice, once on the final play of the game. Davey was sacked four times. The Tigers also fumbled the ball away once.

There were nine penalties in the game, including two offsetting personal fouls. On the final one LSU offensive guard Alceder Jackson and Houston defensive tackle Adriano Belli were ejected from the game.