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Shannon Dawson is the New OC/QB Coach

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Houston fans not mad.
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canefan96 said:
I guess all the people guessing Brian Johnson are a tad disappointed ………
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He was my highest preference by a long shot because I knew we couldn't get Mullen or Herman LMFAO!

There were some better options out there. Who knows if Mario interviewed any of them?

I think Mario may be trying to blend the air raid and power spread to try and capture what Saban did with Kiffen, Smart captured with Monken and what Clemson is trying to recapture with Riley. I think it is a good idea, but I am not sure that we got the playcaller for it, based on Dawson not being good previously without Holgorson. All we can do is let it play out and see if Mario let's him simply run his scheme or if it is blended.
 
Cryptical Envelopment said:
Some key, relevant excerpts:

On Bennett...

“I always measure a kid’s hands when I see him in person. That’s kind of a strange thing maybe for some people, but to me, that’s one of the best traits you can have as a quarterback is big hands because that is the probably one of the biggest factors in accuracy. The bigger your hands are, typically, the more accurate you are just because you can control the ball better. The average NFL quarterback’s hands are probably nine and a quarter. Stetson had 10" hands."
...
The problem was Dawson’s head coach, Jay Hopson, controlled recruiting at Southern Miss and determined who got a scholarship offer and who didn’t. “I could never really get him to like him,” Dawson said. “He wanted a guy that can run power-read every play, which we never ran, but that’s what he wanted. We were just not on the same page with what kind of quarterback we wanted.
...
Bennett’s dad, Stetson III, said if Southern Miss had offered his son out of high school, he thinks Stet would be the Golden Eagles’ quarterback today. The Bennetts loved Shannon Dawson. “He was so full of energy,” Stetson Bennett III said. “You could just tell he’s a quarterback’s guy.” “Dawson kept swinging right up till the end. I knew he loves Georgia and I tried to talk him out of it...

On Mac Jones:

Dawson met Mac Jones when the Jacksonville quarterback was in the eighth grade. Dawson was blown away by what he saw in the kid’s arm. “His release was unbelievable,” Dawson said. “Mac always had a picture-perfect release. I told them that if this kid grows up and gets a little bit bigger, I think he could be a really, really high recruit. That kid can throw the football, but he was a little bitty ****.”
...

By the time Jones was a junior in high school, Dawson was the offensive coordinator at Kentucky. At the time, prospects could come up to campuses and have workouts. Jones showed up in Lexington with his mom and dad and threw for Dawson. “He absolutely killed it,” Dawson said. The Jones family stayed in Lexington that night and met with Dawson the following morning. Dawson hadn’t mentioned anything about an offer, and Jones had just left Wake Forest without an offer from the Demon Deacons. Dawson recalled going home that night and discussing the spindly quarterback with his wife. “I was like, I love the kid. But I just don’t know if he’s gonna be big enough to play in this league because he was real skinny. I said, ‘This is a this is a big boy league, not that all Division I isn’t, but you know how that league.’ But the good thing about my situation there was (Kentucky head coach) Mark (Stoops) didn’t really care what kind of quarterback I took, he just wanted him to be rated high because he wanted to look good in recruiting. It wasn’t like Southern Miss where nobody else could make decisions.”

...

Jones didn’t commit to UK that day, but he did soon thereafter. That fall, the Wildcats struggled on offense, going 5-7. It wasn’t a good fit between Dawson’s Air-Raid roots and what Stoops wanted offensively. “He knew it and I knew it. I think (current UK offensive coordinator) Eddie Gran is a much better fit for what Mark wants to do offensively, and it’s all worked out the way it should,” Dawson said. They parted ways amicably. Dawson went on to Southern Miss from there. Jones later decommited from UK and committed to Alabama.

Jones’ father Gordon told The Athletic’s Andy Staples last week that Mac probably wouldn’t have flipped to Alabama from Kentucky had Dawson not been let go in December 2015.

Macro:

“I think coaches sometimes, especially recruiting quarterbacks, they overanalyze things,” Dawson said. “They want everything to be in this pretty little package, where it’s a no-brainer, and that’s just not the case. You got to see something in the kid that kind of triggers you, and to me, it’s all about accuracy. You look at all these quarterbacks that are five-star kids, and they don’t all work out. Typically, the reason they don’t work out is because they’re not accurate. Like you can have a strong arm, and you can be athletic. You can have all these things, but if you can’t throw the football accurately from point A to point B, you’re going to struggle as a quarterback. The fact of the matter is, if you can’t throw the football accurately, you can get all these quarterback gurus you want to help you, it just ain’t happening, brother."

“Your throwing motion has been ingrained into your body since you’ve been throwing rocks as a little kid, and you’re not changing that. You can change it in a drill, but once live action happens, you’re reverting back to what’s natural, and good luck. Stetson was extremely accurate. Mac was unbelievably accurate. They had great releases. I didn’t really care what the package look like around them. I just knew, this kid can throw the football accurately with a great release, and we can build around them. That’s the way I’ve always viewed recruiting the quarterback.”
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Measuring Hands?? What a size queen!!! Although, interestingly enough that little tidbit may have won over some of his detractors on this board….
 
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Mackmiller974 said:
The WR coach needs to be a stud recruiter, Dawson supposedly doesn't really recruit much.
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Nope...im ok with the wr coach being someone with play calling abilities....We literally have a sh*t ton of recruiters and support staff to pull weight. If your keeping Field...he literally needs to snag 1 te in the class and can carry weight recruiting elsewhere.

Im not mad with grabbing Coley or whomever else at wr...but need a guy who called plays b4 because we cant have the debacle like this year when Gattis couldnt get sh*t going and we had no 1 there to help or take over play calling duties.
 
Cryptical Envelopment said:
No, you're not "hoping," you're a CEO who is "determining" by exhaustively interviewing him, discussing his recruiting style, asking for some back and forth, reaching out to his former college head coaches and colleagues (since, you know, he has coached longer in college than in the NFL) and making a proper evaluation of his skills.
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Or just go get an established elite recruiter.
 
TheOriginalCane said:
What the ****? Did Hartline stick that silver tongue up your brown starfish a few times?

There are a number of things that help a coach to recruit. The school, the facilities, the coaching staff, the wins, not to mention his own track record of development.

If we bring Coley aboard AT ANY POSITION, we will have a silver tongue who hasn't really succeeded as, you known, an ACTUAL coach. And if we bring Hankerson (or another candidate) aboard as WR Coach, we will have a legitimate technician and developer of talent at WR. But, yeah, it's just impossible to have BOTH, right?

It is pretty funny that you think that a guy with significant anxiety issues is such a silver-tongued charmer, and has no other attributes that might contribute to his successful recruiting...but, sure, you were pretty bold and insulting when it came time to throw Mike Rumph under the bus for his personality issues, weren't you?
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"What the ****? Did Hartline stick that silver tongue up your brown starfish a few times?"

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Watched 3 Houston games already and this offense isn't what I expected. Mike Leach's air raid seemed to scheme guys open no matter the talent level he had. This Houston offense is going rely on our wideouts making plays. ( I know that sounds obvious) Its more sandlot footballish if that makes sense. Thought I would see more short throws to be used as the running game like Leach. Seems like just alot of throwing the ball up and letting your wideouts make plays.
 
Rellyrell said:
As I feel the spray painted beard forming over my face:

Dawnson’s history as OC (per NCAA stats):

2013-14 (WVU):
2013: Total O: 62nd / Scoring O: 79th
2014: Total O: 12th / Scoring O: T-34th

2015 (UK):
2015: Total O: 89th / Scoring O: 95th

2016-18 (So. Miss):
2016: Total O: 21st / Scoring O: 41st
2017: Total O: 43rd / Scoring O: 58th
2018: Total O: 99th / Scoring O: 89th

Houston (2020-22):
2020: Total O: 55th / Scoring O: 53rd
2021: Total O: 60th / Scoring O: 15th
2022: Total O: 25th / Scoring O: 16th

Here’s my concerns as I tend not to look at one yr stats vs. trends & tendencies:

In 10 yrs, Dawson has fielded two formidable offenses. I would say 3, but those 2016 stats are a bit misleading & troublesome. Dawson took over an offense under Chip Lindsey (u know, the guy many of us wanted) that was ranked as the 12th best offense & 13th best scoring offense in 2015. Immediately So. Moss became progressively worst under Dawson.

Sure, UK Football has never been a juggernaut for putting points up, but they immediately regretted the hire of Dawson b/c while they wanted Neal Brown’s head on a stake, they were like “hey big head, Whatchu doin?” after Dawson came on board. UK immediately became worst on O, when they were already bad w/ Brown (79th in Total O / 60th in Scoring O - 2014)

Here’s my biggest concern; remember that time when we were struggling mightily on Def in 2021 under Baker, & rumors circled that Manny Diaz, a former DC, had to step in & take control? My concerns is his best two stints as an OC, Holgorsen was the coach; u know, an offensive minded coach who’s a former OC. Without Holgorsen, he’s been ***.

So I’m not going to poor champagne just b/c he has air raid concepts; I’m going to wait to see has he evolved as an OC and is the real deal from 2022 OR is he a byproduct of Holgorsen.

Verdict: Show me, first.

P.S - feel free to provide any further analytics throughout his entire OC career to provide further context.
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jmiller said:
Watched 3 Houston games already and this offense isn't what I expected. Mike Leach's air raid seemed to scheme guys open no matter the talent level he had. This Houston offense is going rely on our wideouts making plays. ( I know that sounds obvious) Its more sandlot footballish if that makes sense. Thought I would see more short throws to be used as the running game like Leach. Seems like just alot of throwing the ball up and letting your wideouts make plays.
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The offense that was not being called by Mike Leach, didn’t look a Mike Leach offense? Wow I cant believe it
 
Cryptical Envelopment said:
You're moving the goalposts. Yes, Mario, like every human, and every coach had made mistakes. That has nothing to do with "hoping" that Hank is a good recruiter. You can educate yourself with research, role-playing, interviews, and references, especially since he or someone close to him probably knows someone who coached with him.

It's wild that some of you don't realize what a young, black, successful NFL coach from a winning playoff team run by an offensive genius would do to recruiting. The man already has his bonafides. Kids are going to want to play for him, regardless of how silver-tongued he is or isn't. You can talk all you want but in the end you also need to be the goods.

He's overqualified for the position the same way Brian Johnson was for OC. It seems that we may have an in because his wife and kid are down here and secondarily, his love for the U. There is nepotism, and then there is leveraging a relationship or circumstance to benefit a program. Very, very different.

At least you admit you're "not sure what he's like as a coach." :)
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What I find odd is that we're still doing this thing where we make assumptions that things are just gonna work out. What about the last 20 years tells you that hiring a guy whose never had to recruit at the level Hankerson is gonna have to is gonna work out for us? Hankerson has been an NFL position coach for one season. There is no track record for him which is why leaving the 49ers to coach under a guy who had to remake his staff after a year would be a huge risk for him. Forget about his potential performance at Miami.

Some real Miami exceptionalism going on with very little reason to believe in it. Just hire Leonard Hankerson. A guy who hasn't been relevant football-wise in the area since 2010. He'll get big-time WRs. It'll work out. Sure.

How many black coaches with local ties have been hired by this program with the same kind of talk of what they're gonna be able to do recruiting only to never live up the hype of their hiring? People on this board talk about players from the area going to go play in some backwards *** place in the south or a different racist place all the time. The young black coaches at Miami have not slowed down the exodus at those premium positions. Those places have young black coaches too or just have a long track record of production and NFL draft picks. And of course, bags. Sometimes all three.

A simple "he's never developed anyone" is a good start for any recruiter going up against him. You really want to trust him and Cristobal? Or sign with us and you're next on this wall where all the WRs we get drafted have their names.
 
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