re: Whose offense will we see this year?

I truly do no care if we even throw a single pass next season. That is a bit of an exaggeration but only because that would affect recruiting. If we can run the ball effectively I don't have a problem running it. Do what works.

I do believe that we will be throwing the ball a little more than last year but I am more interested in the passes thrown than how many. We were handicapped last year with JJ ability to throw and handicapped with Lee mostly due to his history and fears. I want to see Mett. throw the ball all over the field and not take away huge sections of the field due to QBs lack of ability to make certain throws.

Mett. was the best QB last year and that is apparent with what Miles has said. If Mett wasn't the best then Miles wouldn't be making statements like he is making. The only way for him to know that since spring just started was for him to have already known it.

How did the running game work for us in the NC game against Bama. U have to have a balanced attack if u expect to win the NC!

It's going to be Les Miles' offense. Just like Alabama runs Saban's. Oregon runs Kelly's offense. OC's are hired to devise and direct the type of offense the head coach of any team wants.
Can any of you see Saban going to one of his coordinators and saying, "Ok I'm hands off this. You run it. Do what you feel is right."?

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It's going to be Les Miles' offense.

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This. On the plus side, Les Miles does a great job of recruiting talent. When he has more talent, he wins. It just seems like it's 'run to set up the run'. The offense just has to wear out the other team or let our defense and special teams win for them. Pass to set up the run is almost nonexistent and most of the passes seemed like they are in obvious situations.

It worked pretty well last year ... except for that one game. Bama passed on first down, loaded the box, shut down our run game and dared our QB to pass. They had the horses to outlast us and a near perfect strategy to take away our vanilla offense and frustrate our defense. And no, I'm not bitter that Les Miles didn't adjust his game plan on the fly. He probably felt it may go from bad to worse. And if Saban is such a great coach, why didn't he make any adjustments during the first game?

I have two concerns:
1) Les Miles won't make changes to his offensive strategy.
2) Potential QBs and receivers will shy away from LSU because we are not a pass oriented team and/or we don't develop talent.

I know ... TL;DR

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On the plus side, Les Miles does a great job of recruiting talent. When he has more talent, he wins.

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That seems to be the way its done everywhere.
Don't most coaches recruit to fit their personality and their offensive and defensive philosophies?
The coaches that like to run first recruit runners, the coaches that like to throw it all over the yard recruit gunslingers.

If we do throw then throw to our TE's as well. How many times did we throw to our TE's last season?

I say this as an Alabama fan who spent 28 years of my life in Louisiana. I have personally met Billy Cannon. I have a great respect for the LSU tradition. I consider this thread to be the one, out of a great many I have read since 1/9, that gets at the heart of the matter better than any other I have read.

The question that I have always had about LSU football and its tradition is that the emphasis has always been upon the physical superiority of LSU football vis a vis other competing programs, whether that be Alabama, Auburn, Ole Miss, whoever.

The physical superiority of football talent has never been what it's all about regarding University of Alabama football, despite what I have heard a very knowledgable ex-Alabama and ex-Auburn football player say on the radio. They were both too young to remember when Bear Bryant won a national championship in 1961 with a 205 pound quarterback who was just about the biggest player on that football team.

With Bryant it was about recruiting great athletes, but not to the point that this was his sole emphasis. Yes, he wanted to wear down the opposition with superior physicality, so as to win the fourth quarter and therefore win the game. But that very physicality might come from superior effort by inferior talent.

It was the mental aspect of Bryant's coaching that I think has probably been largely overlooked by the "esperts." They have tended to look at him as a big, dumb ex-lineman, who couldn't have been that smart, especially when you consider his folksy, Southern drawl. I think he may have even encouraged this underestimation of his intelligence.

Les Miles has a very definite upside as a college football head coach. He recruits well. The players like his positive, outgoing, even boistrous attitude. He is one of those coaches who, as Ken Stabler says about John Madden, "We had a lot of fun playing for him." That seems to be why players will do extraordinary things for him, in my opinion, such as Eric Reed's interception against Bama in the November 5 game. Les commands a certain loyalty that few coaches can. I might even go so far as to say that this makes Les Miles a great coach.

As I said, the question I have always had about LSU football is whether pure, overwhelming physicality makes for what is popularly called today "an elite football program." If a coach in his recruiting sweeps the state of Louisiana by closing the borders, while adding a few elite players from Texas, Florida, etc., has he, by virtue of the fact that per capita, Louisiana has the best talent in the country, insured that he will win a national championship? That idea still seems to be out there -- in force.

If you were to pick up a copy of Gene Stalling's book on Bear Bryant football, you would see that the opening statement in the book is that Bryant believed that you can have a "tank" of a football team, but you have to have someone who can competently, effectively drive the "tank." Stallings was of course referring to the team quarterback. Bear Bryant happened to be uncomfortable with two of the best players ever to play the position -- Joe Namath and Kenny Stabler. He suspended both of them, in fact. Why? Because he insisted upon control of the person playing the position. Namath and Stabler were both free spirits. Bryant made a practice of walking the campus with his quarterbacks the day or so before a game. Why? Because he considered the quarterback his "coach on the field."

Paul Dietzel, not far removed from Bear Bryant's staff at Kentucky, won a national championship at LSU in 1958. Dietzel had been a pre-med student before deciding to become a football coach. He had as his quarterback a level-headed Warren Rabb from Baton Rouge. At left halfback he had Billy Cannon, also of Baton Rouge, who turned out to be a dentist. Yes, LSU had the material in Louisiana wrapped up at that time, but it wasn't all just about superior physicality and numbers. Ole Miss, by the way, also had superior physicality and numbers at that time. Those were two great football programs in the late fifties -- early sixties. Ole Miss also had a great QB -- Jake Gibbs, who would later become catcher for the New York Yankees.

The question remains for LSU fans. You have a terrific head coach in Les Miles. Miles' strong point is that he can do what LSU fans seem historically to have wanted -- he can recruit and he can win with superior material and numbers. The problem would seem to be what Bear Bryant talked about when he said, "It is the itty-bitty things that can beat you." When a championship game is on the line, then is what Bryant (followed by Jackie Sherrill) called 'the nut-cuttin.' It comes down to'gut-check' time (another Bryant-ism), but it also comes down to what happens mentally on the sideline between the head coach and his quarterback. The question, it seems to me, remains, can LSU be an elite program with what seems to me to be an continued primary emphasis upon physicality and numbers.

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Miles' strong point is that he can do what LSU fans seem historically to have wanted

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Beat Bama?

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funny how that happens with the most talent ever at LSU

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what's your point? do you want him to stop bringing in talent?