re: Question About “O’s Broken Promise” Narrative

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The offense sucked the first several games of the season. O told Canada that LSU didn't yet have the personnel to run the offense Canada wanted to and that he needed to make changes. This actually occurred before the Troy game. Canada lost his cookies and got himself fired.

ETA: The offense improved over the course of the year, all at the same time Canada was vocal at practice saying "this ain't my offense".

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If you're going to make a dramatic change to any scheme, offensive or defense, there will be growing pains, a transitional period where the team stumbles some. You see that whenever there is a change. 3-4 games into a college season, when you have no preseason to work on things, is not the time to hit the panic button. You have to give it a year to take root.
O didn't stay the course, he wanted instant gratification.

Look at TCU. When LSU was dominant, TCU was a mid-major darling with a extremely strong defense and a pro-style offense.
They transitioned to a more wide-open offense, and within a couple years, they have become a 50 pt a game team.
LSU beat them during the transition, they were good at times in that game, and stumbled a bit. Patterson didn't panic, and now they can scorch the scoreboard.

A very successful coach has to know what he wants to do, and build the team to do that.
Saban at LSU wanted a team that would hold other teams below 17 points, control the ball, and score maybe 20 to win. He built it, and built Alabama that way. Monster lines and defense, big backs, QBs that can manage the game and move the sticks. He ran into trouble facing the wide-open schemes, because he couldn't hold them down all game (A&M, Oklahoma, Auburn under Malzahn, Ole Miss under Freeze). So he tweaked the offense to score more, and the team adjusted and won. He clashed mightily with his OC (Kiffin) because it didn't mesh with his own experiences, but he was smart enough to know a 20 pt offense would not be enough to beat a team that could score 50 on others, they might get 30 on him.

Miles here wanted a classic Michigan style team, for lack of a better term. Run the ball against anyone, control the clock, limit the other offense's possessions, wear down the opponent with your superior talent. It worked, until Alabama wasn't inferior (or even) on talent anymore. Once Bama got more talent and depth, that system didn't work against them... but worked against almost everyone else.

Orgeron seems to have no clue what he wants. He pines away for the USC and Miami teams he was an assistant on, but those schemes are simple. They won because they were way more talented than their opponent. We've already learned under Miles that can't happen here anymore.