re: OK, I will give Miles some credit for our team over the past 4 years

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SlowFlowPro

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Either someone hacked SFP's account, or his medication has been adjusted to the correct dosage or something "out of the ordinary" is going on.

In any event-

+1

Couldn't have said it better myself (<-???)

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i was very quiet about criticizing miles early on b/c we were looking like we wanted to destroy teams early and then grind them down late. this changed as the season went on. he went back to his comfort zone and it ended up biting us in the arse. that's what worries me

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Agree!

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i was very quiet about criticizing miles early on b/c we were looking like we wanted to destroy teams early and then grind them down late.

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that was the mantra all season....grind them down til they have nothing left late in the game. i don't think that ever changed. that was one of the main reasons we were able to come back against Arky and UGA...they had nothing left. Unfortunately bama had the right game plan and the mediocre QB play caught up to us. He never trusted our QBs and it showed. If Mett is as good as advertised i think he'll go back to 2007 when he had a QB he trusted. People act like we've ran the ball 70% of the time since the day he got here.

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If Mett is as good as advertised i think he'll go back to 2007 when he had a QB he trusted

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Which begs the question why ZM didn't get any playing time, at the very least late in some of these blow outs?

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nd everyone should admit by now that miles has some serious philosophical issues with his handling of offense. i posted that in the OP

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I agree with a lot of your original post but I think you are missing a major point. You correctly point out how Miles managed to keep LSU from suffering the same fate as FSU, Texas, Miami etc when they missed on a good QB.

Well how exactly do you do that? How do you manage to have your team undefeated and in the NCG without a serviceable QB? You do it by being conservative on offense!!

It boggles my mind that smart football people like you seem to miss this. How do you view Nick Sabans offensive philosophy? Yeah I know Bama threw it 34 times in the NCG, but go look at box scores for the entire time Saban has coached in the SEC (LSU included) and find me a game when he threw it 34 times when he was LEADING THE WHOLE WAY!

This was an anomaly caused by him being beaten at his own game by LSU the last two times and him knowing he had to take a chance if he wanted to win. Bama wasn't able to run consistenly against LSU the previous two games and it was the same two lines again so he knew he had to go in a different direction.

Bottom line is, both Miles and Saban believe that if you can recruit enough talent, the style of coaching that will make you the most consistent winner is to be a "run first" team and lean on your defense and special teams. This lessens the "variance" that can be caused when you make a few missteps in QB recruiting. It also gives you a buffer when you lose an otherwise good QB recruit who suffers a season ending injury. You still have options even if he goes down.

As this season proved once again, there are only about 7 or 8 schools in the nation that can recruit enough talent to not be blown out when they face a physical team like the LSU's and Bama's of the CFB world. It just so happens that one of those 7 or 8 is in our same division, in fact perhaps the ONLY school that has enough talent to shut us down like they did. But IMO they can't do that on a regular basis, they had the extra motivation of having those two consecutive losses to us and were backed against the wall causing them to go against "type". Our players on the other hand were probably a little too cocky, and how could they not be?

The LSU coaching staff did not anticipate Saban and Bama to go so far against type and pass like they did. If you want to fault Miles for something this is it....but this certainly isn't the first time a coaching staff gets "outcoached" in a game and it won't be the last. But as a fan of LSU, I am much more interested in the entire body of work than I am in the outcome of one particular game, even if it IS the NCG.