Dawson certainly isn’t the entirety of the problem, but neither is part of the solution
Bill Parcells observed that you are what your record says you are. And Dawson’s record as an OC has vacillated between mediocre and bad. He has never, ever coached anything but mediocre to bad offenses as an OC except when Dana Holgorsen was his HC who is himself very hands on with his offenses and has his own scheme
Stoops dumped Dawson after one season at KY, and Dawson was similarly mediocre to bad at SoMiss.
There has never been a year when Dawson has been an OC somewhere that we can point to and say, yeah, that’s the offensive performance I want.
And somehow he got hired as our OC in spite of zero first hand achievements as an OC.