Just different for LSU football under Lane Kiffin?

Not much.

Not at all, really.

The Tigers could have kept Brian Kelly and avoided paying a fortune to buy him out and pry Kiffin away from Ole Miss and still probably been 6-4 with two games left in this season. A season in which LSU was able to bully the teams it was much better than talent wise and lose to all the teams that mattered.

Texas essentially put the lights out on LSU’s season Saturday night with a 22-21 come-from-behind victory, as the Tigers were unable to hold a 21-10 lead late in the third quarter. In Tiger Stadium. At night.

Good news for LSU: It once again outgained the opposition in defeat, this time 366-273. Doesn’t that make every LSU fan feel all warm and fuzzy inside?

It was a subject of endless debate as to whether LSU at 6-3 was still really in contention for a College Football Playoff berth coming into this one. Past experience said no, but ESPN’s playoff predictor said yes, definitely, to the tune of 73% probability.

But this loss reduced LSU’s hopes to practically zero in this final year of the 12-team CFP. Heck, four losses might not get you in next year’s 24-team playoff, either.

“This really hurts,” said safety Ty Benefield, who did all he could with two interceptions of Arch Manning. “This really hurts my guys, too.”

There will be plenty of time to chew over LSU’s future, whether Kiffin will eventually be able to live up to enormous expectations in Baton Rouge or whether he will be yet another coach this proud but often underachieving program chews up and sends packing with another enormous Jimmy Sexton-engineered severance package.

I still think it is far too early to write off Kiffin and his ability to win at LSU. But Saturday’s loss coupled with last week’s 31-13 defeat against Alabama made this the first time the Tigers have lost home games in back-to-back weeks since 1994.

That was the year LSU fired Curley Hallman. A little advice for Kiffin: You want to limit your comparisons to Hallman as much as possible.

Why did LSU lose … again?

Last week against Alabama, it was obvious. The Tigers raced up and down the field between the 20s but couldn’t score enough points in the red zone. LSU was like a high-speed team in the 4x100-meter relay that couldn’t hold onto the baton.

This loss was similar in theme to Bama, but more akin to LSU’s 35-34 overtime loss at Kentucky, the defeat that really sent the Tigers’ fortunes skidding off the rails.

LSU got two touchdowns in the red zone on passes of 10 and 9 yards from Sam Leavitt to Jackson Harris. The Tigers also got a 44-yard touchdown run by Dilin Jones that put LSU in firm command up 21-10 with 5:52 left in the third quarter.

But the offense dried up after that. The Tigers managed only 22 yards of total offense in the fourth quarter while the Longhorns chipped away and chipped away at their lead. Finally, it came down to one play: Texas at the LSU 4 with 0:06 left facing second-and-goal.

Do or die, and wouldn’t you know the Longhorns and Manning did. Texas cunningly flared running back Raleek Brown in motion wide left near the boundary, and Manning hit him with a perfectly timed pass as he turned his momentum toward the end zone. LSU linebacker Davhon Keys reacted far too late, and Brown scored with 0:03 left.

Manning, who threw three interceptions and several other wild passes on this night, could have certainly missed Brown. He did it on other passes Saturday night. But as maddeningly inconsistent as the son of the House of Manning can be, the New Orleans native was perfectly on the mark with that throw when it counted most.

History and all the SportsCenter and SEC Nation highlights will show that was the game-winning score. Not to take away from what Manning and Texas did but there also were plenty of game-losing moments for LSU throughout the contest.

Leavitt also threw three interceptions, all to Texas safety Jelani McDonald, who in a twisted way ranked as Leavitt’s fourth-leading receiver. The Tigers also had a missed 38-yard field goal by Scott Starzyk just before halftime that would have put LSU up 17-10 and, all else being equal, would have had the Tigers up 24-10 late in the third quarter. In that scenario, Texas may have needed that Manning-to-Brown touchdown pass plus a two-point conversion just to force overtime.

But all that’s conjecture. What is fact is this season and all the money LSU has spent paying this coaching staff and building this roster have been wasted. It’s a harsh new world of college football we’re living in, but a trip to the CFP means you passed and a year in which you didn’t means you failed.

This season will go down as a failure. Pure and simple.

Maybe it will one day be a season that provides a foundation for what is to come under Kiffin. But maybe he also is what so many of his critics say he is — a coach who can’t get it done when it counts most.

Nothing different about that, either.