BATON ROUGE, La. — You won’t find a better spot to understand the most interesting place in college football than the intersection of Lane Kiffin’s past and present.Oxford Ave. and LSU Ave.At first glance, the oak-canopied corner in the College Town neighborhood seems generic enough to fit in Gainesville, Fla., Auburn, Ala., Oxford, Miss. or any other place Kiffin could have been coaching this fall. But look around, and you’ll see signs that it is, to use the phrase Kiffin has repeated countless times since leaving Playoff-bound Ole Miss for LSU late last year, just different.A pair of tiger statues stand guard a few houses down. The park around the corner lists one of its benefactors as Todd Graves, the LSU donor and CEO of the Raising Cane’s chicken fingers empire. The for-sale sign on the vacant lot across the street beckons with the promise that “gameday could start here,” 1.1 miles from Tiger Stadium.Football at LSU is 'just different.' Here's whyMatt BakerIs all that enough to explain why Nick Saban reportedly advised Kiffin that his old job here is the best in the country? Of course not. The Tigers rank no worse than 12th nationally in (deep breath): athletic expenses, athletic revenue, stadium capacity, stadium atmosphere, facilities, all-time victories, top-10 finishes and Heisman Trophy winners, plus modern-era NFL Draft picks, recruiting rankings and national titles. Those metrics collectively put LSU in the same top tier as Texas, Ohio State, Michigan and Alabama, with only the Crimson Tide winning more national championships this century.Yet if LSU really is just different — as Kiffin and others at LSU say it is — there has to be more. Something that separates the Tigers from every other powerhouse program and explains why three coaches have led them to a national championship since 2003 and why Kiffin would leave a College Football Playoff team for the chance to become No. 4.But what?“How do you explain God to somebody?” asked Dixon McMakin, Tiger Stadium’s public address announcer and a state politician. “It’s the ultimate intangible aspect of this place, yet there are tiny moments of tangibleness that happen all the time.”By an aptly named intersection in College Town. At a sushi joint on the eve of national signing day. And, because this is Louisiana, in the backroom of a seafood restaurant.The night the Playoff began, Kiffin could have been back in Oxford making 11th-hour preparations for Ole Miss’ first-round game against Tulane. Instead, he was posting photos of oysters on social media.