Shannon Dawson

People love to hate on Shannon Dawson, but most of them just don’t get how good of a play-caller he actually is.
This is a guy who inherited a QB who couldn’t throw until late in fall camp due to Carson's UCL surgery and still found a way to get them to a national championship by scheming around that limitation. Last year was massive for his growth as a play-caller because he was forced to lean on the run game — something that goes completely against his Air Raid roots.
In 2024 we had the best offense in college football. The only real problem was that we scored so fast we couldn’t keep our defense off the field, and that’s exactly what cost us against Syracuse. Look at what happens whenever Shannon has legitimate weapons: 2012 WVU, the Tank Dell Houston teams, and 2024. Straight video-game numbers every single time.
Right now he’s working with the most talented offense he’s ever coached. We were on pace to be better than 2019 LSU in 2024 with Cam , and I fully expect the same (or better) this year.
We know you wrote this Dawson……
I can't believe he hasn't learned to STOP BEING CONSERVATIVE WHEN WE HAVE A BIG LEAD
 
Was it just me or on the series where mensah threw his first incompletion did it look like he got up slow grabbing his hammy?
I thought he was shakey, I cant even understand what happened to the offense in second half.. He wasnt even finding Mali when he was open, utter confused.
 
And just because Toney was limited in the second half… Barkate was still out there, the guy who was an 1,000 yard receiver with Mensah at Duke last year.

Did he even get a target during that dreadful 3 and out stretch?
 
Was it just me or on the series where mensah threw his first incompletion did it look like he got up slow grabbing his hammy?

He was def grimacing and looked to be shook up. I couldn’t really tell what it was though and he obviously returned but this is the most banged up we’ve been, especially this early in a long, long, time.

Still no excuses for that 4Q performance though IMO. That may have been the worst Q I’ve seen since Gattis.
 
And just because Toney was limited in the second half… Barkate was still out there, the guy who was an 1,000 yard receiver with Mensah at Duke last year.

Did he even get a target during that dreadful 3 and out stretch?
1 WR screen

Lofton 3 targets

1 target to Toney

Rest runs
 
It’s insane. It’s like half the fan base forgets his overwhelmingly strong tendencies he gets into sometimes.

When he wants to chuck it deep all the time things go well. When he calls plays like I’m the QB things do not. It will happen again
 
I wrote this in the other thread but when Mali got hurt, and the momentum changed, Mensah got off his rhythm.

The plays from then on were to protect from a turnover. It was actually smart, mature play calling to protect his QB and the lead.

The far bigger issue is the inability to big boy football against them by running it down their throats the way that we did at the end of last year. That MUST get corrected.
what happened to running out of the pistol with mallory? We had more success with that last season after SMU and thru the playoffs.
Is that harder for the OL?

If Fletcher is injured and cannot play, it looks like Lyle will be seeing the field too. They will need to platoon the guys left in that room
 
63b78fb6-dba6-4635-939f-62d1a754f541.jpg
For all the hate for Dawson, Mensah missed Lofton here.
 
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