Our offense is not in sync and hasn’t been since maybe a&m but that was only game 2 so I would hope u have 2 weeks worth of plans but as the season went on and teams have adjusted we kinda have an identity crisis… To me its three things going on just from a outside perspective
1. Dawson is learning on the fly. This is only his 4th year not being under dana, and those 3 years were almost 6 years ago. This would explain why the offense is not in sync and seems so basic. He doesn’t have a full staff of people who know his system and can contribute to the entire plan..Also idk if Dawson is a fully seasoned coordinator to know what he want his offense to look like. If u aren’t a seasoned coordinator that has been in different situations (like guidry) it can be difficult to adjust to everything without a good support staff familiar with your style of offense.
This is why I think we see a creative play here and there but dont see it consistently. For example the nc state game is the first game i saw multiple rpos that weren’t just hitches or tunnel screens then we just don’t see it much anymore ..its like he’s adding stuff as the year goes on but it doesn’t look in sync to the rest of the gameplan, its like its a throw in play..This could also have something to do with him getting here late and not being able to install everything he wanted to.
2. Mario has his hands in this offense. It was said by a commentator that dawson said he basically had to convince mario that he will not just throw it every play lol. Respectable posters on here have said he had to make concessions to mario about certain things and that can hinder you as a coordinator if you are trying to please the hc while also trying to come up with something that can work for your current personnel it can cause problems because almost dawson entire career he has a hc that lines up with his way of thinking, this is a different situation the hc philosophy is totally different than what he’s accustomed to ,that can be difficult for someone who hasn’t had much experience in different situations
3. This one is, it can possibly be dawson is just a mediocre play designer that needs a qb to carry the offense along with a game changer at wr.. I say this because some of the plays are just too basic with no creativity to put the defense in conflict. We line up 11p 2x2 and drop back and expect the qb to be on time, have good to great arm talent, have wrs that can consistently dominate 1on1 matchups (which we dont have). Thats not how u should structure an offense in college unless u have a joe burrow
We don’t present difficult problems for the defense to solve, the formations are basic, not much shifting or motion, not much misdirection..See how Louisville constantly motioned, constantly gave us different pre snap pictures and/or made it look the same everytime and then boom it’s something different and took advantage of the defense playing a certain way. Thats a skill as a play caller that dawson might not have..
We don’t leverage our run game much, it’s literally just lineup and run.. This past week is one of the few times we actually took advantage of the defense keying in on our run game, the under center play action bomb to colbie even tho it wasnt caught it was an example of using formations and leveraging your run game into big plays in the passing game, another one was that play action crosser to colbie young in the Virginia game. I think this is because the air raid guys have just recently added having a full run game plan into their offense, because it doesn’t blend with everything else they do its like they just do it just to do it.
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I hate long post but i been wanting to fully get my thoughts off somewhere lol. I wouldn’t mind dawson coming back, I think we can benefit from having some cohesiveness at the coordinator spots. I think he is a solid OC that we can win games with especially when we upgrade the skill positions and I think he can learn from this year and get better… Salute if u read all this **** lol
