2011 success was fool's gold that set LSU back more than the BCS loss (long)

Let's breakdown this resumé

- Oregon was breaking in a shitload of new players and their returner was out, his backup gave up a fumble returned for a TD to TM7. Oregon finished the game with like 15 penalties and a -4 turnover margin. 41-27 score incredibly misleading.

- Didn't get the turnover margin on the road against a mediocre MSU team, Lee played like the scared and damaged kid he usually was and the caveman offense grinded out a brutal 19-6 win

- WV put up a ton of yards on us and outgained us by nearly 200 yds. LSU benefitted from a +4 turnover margin and a kickoff return TD. Lee played ok compared to his usual road games. But it wasn't domination despite the score

- To their credit, beat up on bad Auburn, Kentucky, Tennessee and Florida teams like they should have done

- game of the century: if you're not a massive homer, you realized that Alabama was the better team, but LSU was much better in a crucial area: special teams. Drew Alleman and Brad Wing were great, Bama's kickers and returners? Less so. Running the option with Jefferson caught them off guard a few times.

-Arkansas, fell behind 14-7 until TM7's return TD completely flipped the momentum. Go their credit, the offensive staff used more spread sets and zone reads with JJ and he played well. This is how his career should have been

-UGA, offense completely bottoms out. No first downs in the first half. TM7's return TD flips the momentum again and LSU wears down UGA's soft defensive front eventually and pulls away. LSU finishes with more points than passing yards.

-BCS title game: in the month leading up to this, the two brain cells in Clue-Les' head rubbed together and produced the game plan of "well, you know that speed option play with JJ caught Bama off guard in the first game, so I'm sure Nick Saban and co. will ignore it in their prep and be absolutely helpless against it this time! " McElwain et al decide to let McCarron air it out to open the game to loosen our defense up, it works and they put up 400 yds (missed multiple FG's again iirc) and 21 pts though they would've only needed half of either.

The lesson that people took from this season was, "Well shite, we can just try to play Bo Schembechler ball in the modern SEC, only Bama can give us trouble! "

What it should have been was " Our coach is a blithering idiot who refuses to maximize our talent across the field, we don't have the OL talent / development to implement his philosophy even if it could work these days, the lynchpin to 2011's success was a generational talent in Mathieu and a turnover margin that just couldn't be replicated season by season."

Tbf I think some fans realize what Miles was, but Alleva was so fricking weak and timid that he wasn't going to do shite. The trend of attrition and being lax in everything except weed testing took hold: Miles kicked Mathieu off the team for fricking weed (some hick fans still call him a "thug" for that!), but let the team vote to allow Jeremy Hill to play after he violated his probation by sucker punching someone on video. Numerous other off field incidents brushed off, the first Guice accuser (summer of 2016) says that "all the higher ups knew and definitely an equipment manager knew about Guice taking a partially nude photo of her and sharing it without her permission: 99% chance Miles knew and didn't gaf.

By the end of 2015 it was clear that Miles' philosophy was a sad joke. To add insult to injury, he tried to fit dual-threat QBs into his 1970s I-formation offense. The 8-0 start had been yet another fluke and after getting fully exposed at Bama, LSU was rock-bottomed by Arkansas and Ole Miss. All the usual symptoms of a Miles team were at their worst: no discipline, overall lazy disposition, no creativity on offense. With Texas A&M, Miles found an opponent as inept as him (Sumlin at Arizona has been arguably worse than Miles at Kansas since the former had some good talent, especially Khalil Tate). LSU was the last retard standing after a debacle of the game and coward Alleva caved in to the touchy-feely good ol Les image (completely bogus) and gave him a chance to waste another season.

LSU signed a solid 2016 recruiting class, but there were some glaring roster issues: lack of depth at OL and having as many fullbacks as receivers.

2016 Wisconsin game began with Miles giving a "frick you" to the fans and administrators dumb enough to trust him by lining up in 22 personnel and running toss power with Fournette. More insult to injury: Boutte's godawful cheap shot at the end of the game and Piles' excuses for him afterwards showed just how sorry things were at every level. Auburn showed that Class-Les was still clueless as well with his clock management. He's finally put out of his misery, but the rot has set in so badly that we're still paying for it.

Oh and the "entitled" attitudes y'all complain about started with good old chest-loving Les: what he sold recruits on was getting to the pros, they knew that trash offense wasn't going to win championships. Added bonus of having a coach who doesn't care about anything you do besides smoking weed. So we did well recruiting defense and RBs (and FBs) but lost a bunch of OL and skill position recruits.

Basically, stop thinking of 2011 as a great season and Miles having redeemable qualities. He inherited a program with all the momentum in the world, a massive head start over sanctioned Bama and got two SEC titles and a paper, two loss NC out over the course of a decade. 2011 solidified Miles and allowed him to rot the program from the inside and that grew until it attracted NCAA attention just like Erickson at Miami and Switzer at Oklahoma. Miles was like those but without the success, he was not a "good guy" or even a decent coach.