Oh I get the appeal of college towns... Athens, Knoxville, Lawrence (Kansas), Chapel Hill, Madison, Ann Arbor. There are some great college towns across the country. ****, even Oxford has its thing. Baton Rouge is a **** hole.
I have been to both. Knoxville is actually pretty nice and you are in the Smokey Mountains as opposed to a half baked state capital near the Bayou. A lot of retirement money has moved into that area, and restaurants have followed. I lived in New Orleans, love the area, but there is no competition.
Baton Rouge is a dump. The best thing about it is that it’s an hour from New Orleans. Knoxville, Athens, and Nashville are the cream of the crop as far as SEC campuses go. I’ve actually heard Fayetteville is a great town too.