Through 3 games against FBS teams (FCS teams excluded), Miami ranks second nationally in PPG (51), first nationally in yards per play (9.2) and first nationally in passing yards (432 YPG). Shannon Dawson met with reporters to discuss the offense and the upcoming game against Virginia Tech:
On Isaiah Horton: He's obviously got that potential. The more opportunities he gets, the more plays he'll make. Very talented dude. Just do what you do, stay positive, and when you get your opportunity, make a play. There's going to be games where you catch 100 and games where you catch 30. So find ways to affect the game. And he does. He affects the game. He plays hard every snap. Then when he gets opportunities, he can make plays. So that's awesome to see.
On Sam Brown’s TD catch: He needed that. He needed to make a big play because that's who he is. He's a guy that can make plays down the field. He's going to make a lot of plays like that.
He got here late. It was a little bit different for him because he didn't even start camp. But good to see him make a play. He can make a lot of them.
On the red zone offense, which went 5/5 with TDs: When you get down there, the field gets smaller, so running the ball obviously helps. If we get some yards on first down, then we're 2nd and 6, 2nd and 3. You can do a lot of things when you're in those situations. The closer you get, the more focused you have to be executing the pass game because you don't have a lot of space.
Both of those really work together. If they're so obsessed with stopping the run, which they were, then we can get some one-on-one throws out there. In those situations, you’ve got to make a good throw and give them a chance and make a play. We want touchdowns over field goals, and it hadn't always happened this year, but it happened Saturday, which was good.
On the running game: They came out and they put everybody in the box, which was kind of shocking to me. I think we're good at both, so you pick your poison. Which one do you want to defend? If you want to do what South Florida did and put everybody in the box and play man coverage, then we're probably not going to have a lot of explosive runs.
Now, later in the game, whenever we were trying to lean on them a little bit, I took my foot off the gas. They can play man coverage, but let's get big and lean on them. Obviously, we can do that, too. But when they come out and put everybody in there, we’ve got to adjust the game plan a little bit and go to more man beaters.
We can get better in both. We threw for a lot of yards Saturday, but we missed a handful, too. So it's not like one side is polished and in perfection, either. But I do think there's some things that we can do better in the run game. When they do give us the numbers, it’s typically as the game goes on. You can look back at Ball State, As the game went on, they started moving the MIKE out of the box. Fletcher hit like a 40-yarder. It’s one of those things where you just got to stick with it because our guys are talented. If they get some grass, they're gonna make a play.
On Virginia Tech: They’ve got a lot of returning starters. They played a ton of ball together. D-line wise, 52 (Antwaun Powell-Ryland) leads the conference in sacks. At this point, their ability to get to the quarterback and affect the quarterback has been proven. They're very active. They're aggressive.
They're one of those defenses that obsesses about stopping the run and their safeties get downhill and get active in the run game. We’ve got to do a good job at receiver, at digging those guys out, and blocking the seventh guy and sometimes eighth guy. But they are very aggressive and physical. It'll be our biggest challenge to date.
On Cam Ward’s ability to read coverage: He sees things in the back end that most people don't see. On the throw to Sam, that corner misstepped. I asked him when we were watching that tape, and basically, that's what he saw. The corner made a mistake, he stepped up and triggered Cover Two to us, and he knew what was coming there.
They try to disguise Cover Two. Through film study, a lot of times when you try to disguise it really good, the safety doesn’t get to where he needs to get. That was one of those things that we talked about through the week, that if we could catch them in Cover Two and they were really trying to disguise it, we could take advantage of it. But sometimes those opportunities don't come up in a game. It came up on that specific play, which was good because we really needed that play.
On Cam pointing out the runs on the goal line: I look at things through a different set of glasses when we talk about run game. Because that specifically, we get down there and they pretty much know we're running it. We know we're running it. And he tells them where we're running it. And our O-Line just blows them off the ball. We can be physical, too. Really cool.
On what he’s learned about his offense: We're a veteran bunch, and we really do stay focused in the moment. That's one thing that as coaches we preach. Ultimately, when the game is done, that's over with no matter how good or how bad you do. You’ve got to treat Sunday like Sunday and Monday like Monday. We have a lot of guys that stay tunnel-visioned in the moment, and that carries over to preparations during the week.
It also carries over to the game whenever bad things go bad. Just like the pick we threw. He's going to catch that 99% of the time. But we didn't in that specific moment. We threw a pick. The defense obviously has to go out there. We put them in a bad place. Our guys go over there and it's just on to the next play.
I appreciate that because there's no panic. There's no pointing fingers. It's just “Hey, it is what it is. It's over, move forward and play the next play. What are we going to do the next drive?” We have a bunch of guys on offense that really do get over the previous drive, the previous play, no matter how good or how bad it was, and they just move on to the next play. They don't get affected by much, which is what you want to see. You don't want to see up and down. You want to see people stay in the middle and execute. Block the emotions out.
On the combination of elite third-down efficiency and explosiveness: The third down stuff is partly receivers getting open and partly Cam scrambling around and getting a first down. You’ve got to have both if you're gonna be good on third down. Defenses spend a lot of their time on third downs. They're gonna get exotic. You're gonna see things that you haven't necessarily seen on tape. There's a chance that everybody gets covered. I'm gonna state the obvious, but it's the truth. Third down is the last down, so treat it like it's the last down. Meaning that whatever you gotta do to get the first down, get the first down.
I appreciate guys straining on third down. Because ultimately it is the last down and it needs to be treated as the last down. There's nothing more frustrating than not treating it like the last down. And you see it happen a lot. You’ve got to scratch and claw our guys' eyes out on third down, because we need another set of downs.
Now, the explosive play deal is more, once guys get the ball in their hands, the scheme of the play is over. Genetics and recruiting take over then.
On opening up the playbook in ACC play: I believe to my core that routine plays win games. I say that a lot and I will always believe that. There's a tipping point of being cute and creative and executing football. A lot of times, as the season goes, defenses know what you're good at. We know what they're good at. If you don't have some kind of trend, then you're probably not good on either side. That's just facts.
So, yeah, we're going to try to break trends and we're going to try to do some things that are creative every week. But there's going to be a majority of our game plan that is just trying to window dress what we do the best. That’s the way football is. Everybody's really like that. You try to see, “OK, well, we've done this a couple of times. Maybe we can do that off of that.” Little wrinkles, absolutely, those things happen.
But I'm a firm believer in “routine plays win games.” You watch games every weekend, NFL and college. A lot of the plays, 90% of them, are routine plays. It's the 10% or 5% that gets on SportsCenter and Twitter that everybody gets excited about, and they want to dissect it. That don't excite me. What excites me is throwing a hook route or throwing a cross route and throwing it on time and hitting them, or throwing an option route. That excites me more than the other stuff.
On dialing up a special play: That's going to happen every now and again. It will. And a lot of times you work on them all week and they don't hit. It's the other stuff that works. You’ve got to sprinkle some stuff in, and creativity is awesome. But there is a tipping point to where you could have too much of that stuff and it could go the other way.
So that's just game planning weekly to figure out what that balance is.
On extended plays: We do have a scramble drill that we practice, but since Cam’s been here, when we go against our defense, it kind of organically happens. The way we practice, we just let plays keep going. Kids pay attention. It doesn't take long if you're a receiver or a tight end or running back to figure out he's going to extend plays. So I better keep playing. The more that happens in practice situations, the more guys figure out, “Hey, look, this play could last six or seven seconds. I get my eyes on the quarterback and wherever he's going, I got to go.”
There are some basic scramble rules that we try to adhere to, but a lot of times that gets thrown out. Because ultimately you're just trying to find open space and in a direction that the quarterback is going.
On the play where Fletcher got hit for a TFL: They were man free and in a 4-2 box. We were motioning a tight end across and basically running split zone. And so that guy's defending the tight end. So he just took a gamble. He was trailing behind, so he knew that he was in trouble. He just shot the B-gap.
That's a very specific play you're talking about, where if that guy does his job, it's a very unsound thing to do in that particular defense they were running. That doesn't happen. But if he tracks the tight end, the ball is out the B gap for a big one. Or if we slip the tight end, the ball is out to the tight end for a big one because nobody's guarding him.
So that's just one of those plays where defense took a gamble and it paid off. We actually didn't take advantage of a gamble that was taken. If any one of the other things would have happened on offense, we would have had a big play. But that specific gamble that kid took paid off because we handed it to him. We couldn't have blocked him in that situation. There wasn't anybody targeting him. He was the man player on the tight end. He should have been tracking over the top, but he took a gamble and ran through the big gap and made a play. Good job by that kid if he recognized something in that play.
On Xavier Restrepo: Some people are natural fits for certain schemes. It was easy to see with him where he fit in our offense. We’ve always had a guy like that where you run a lot of option routes, you do a lot of things over the middle, a lot of the routes that he runs that are outbreaking. Guys like him get matched up against linebackers and safeties. They have good lateral mobility and they have good body control.
When you first get to a place, you're looking at bodies thinking about, “OK, that guy looks like an X, that guy looks like this, that guy looks like that.” When they start making plays and moving around, you can start filtering those guys into those spots because you're trying to figure out, “OK, what is the identity of that kid? What's he good at?”
And so, with Strep, it was easy to see that that kid was an H in our offense. It just so happened that it was a really good fit for him, and he has a really good skill set for what we ask him to do. He plays with a very, very, high motor. He strains very, very hard every play. If he's blocking, if he's running routes, if he doesn't get the ball. And so his effort really is the reason he gets open a lot. But his skill set and his ability to run those intermediate routes is really crucial for our offense.
I don't know what Strep would run in the 40, but I know that when he runs a route, he runs it fast. When he stops and starts, he stops and starts fast. And if the ball is in his cylinder, in his hands, in his whatever you want to call it, he typically can manipulate his body and make the catch. So those are all good things if you're a receiver.
On Isaiah Horton: He's obviously got that potential. The more opportunities he gets, the more plays he'll make. Very talented dude. Just do what you do, stay positive, and when you get your opportunity, make a play. There's going to be games where you catch 100 and games where you catch 30. So find ways to affect the game. And he does. He affects the game. He plays hard every snap. Then when he gets opportunities, he can make plays. So that's awesome to see.
On Sam Brown’s TD catch: He needed that. He needed to make a big play because that's who he is. He's a guy that can make plays down the field. He's going to make a lot of plays like that.
He got here late. It was a little bit different for him because he didn't even start camp. But good to see him make a play. He can make a lot of them.
On the red zone offense, which went 5/5 with TDs: When you get down there, the field gets smaller, so running the ball obviously helps. If we get some yards on first down, then we're 2nd and 6, 2nd and 3. You can do a lot of things when you're in those situations. The closer you get, the more focused you have to be executing the pass game because you don't have a lot of space.
Both of those really work together. If they're so obsessed with stopping the run, which they were, then we can get some one-on-one throws out there. In those situations, you’ve got to make a good throw and give them a chance and make a play. We want touchdowns over field goals, and it hadn't always happened this year, but it happened Saturday, which was good.
On the running game: They came out and they put everybody in the box, which was kind of shocking to me. I think we're good at both, so you pick your poison. Which one do you want to defend? If you want to do what South Florida did and put everybody in the box and play man coverage, then we're probably not going to have a lot of explosive runs.
Now, later in the game, whenever we were trying to lean on them a little bit, I took my foot off the gas. They can play man coverage, but let's get big and lean on them. Obviously, we can do that, too. But when they come out and put everybody in there, we’ve got to adjust the game plan a little bit and go to more man beaters.
We can get better in both. We threw for a lot of yards Saturday, but we missed a handful, too. So it's not like one side is polished and in perfection, either. But I do think there's some things that we can do better in the run game. When they do give us the numbers, it’s typically as the game goes on. You can look back at Ball State, As the game went on, they started moving the MIKE out of the box. Fletcher hit like a 40-yarder. It’s one of those things where you just got to stick with it because our guys are talented. If they get some grass, they're gonna make a play.
On Virginia Tech: They’ve got a lot of returning starters. They played a ton of ball together. D-line wise, 52 (Antwaun Powell-Ryland) leads the conference in sacks. At this point, their ability to get to the quarterback and affect the quarterback has been proven. They're very active. They're aggressive.
They're one of those defenses that obsesses about stopping the run and their safeties get downhill and get active in the run game. We’ve got to do a good job at receiver, at digging those guys out, and blocking the seventh guy and sometimes eighth guy. But they are very aggressive and physical. It'll be our biggest challenge to date.
On Cam Ward’s ability to read coverage: He sees things in the back end that most people don't see. On the throw to Sam, that corner misstepped. I asked him when we were watching that tape, and basically, that's what he saw. The corner made a mistake, he stepped up and triggered Cover Two to us, and he knew what was coming there.
They try to disguise Cover Two. Through film study, a lot of times when you try to disguise it really good, the safety doesn’t get to where he needs to get. That was one of those things that we talked about through the week, that if we could catch them in Cover Two and they were really trying to disguise it, we could take advantage of it. But sometimes those opportunities don't come up in a game. It came up on that specific play, which was good because we really needed that play.
On Cam pointing out the runs on the goal line: I look at things through a different set of glasses when we talk about run game. Because that specifically, we get down there and they pretty much know we're running it. We know we're running it. And he tells them where we're running it. And our O-Line just blows them off the ball. We can be physical, too. Really cool.
On what he’s learned about his offense: We're a veteran bunch, and we really do stay focused in the moment. That's one thing that as coaches we preach. Ultimately, when the game is done, that's over with no matter how good or how bad you do. You’ve got to treat Sunday like Sunday and Monday like Monday. We have a lot of guys that stay tunnel-visioned in the moment, and that carries over to preparations during the week.
It also carries over to the game whenever bad things go bad. Just like the pick we threw. He's going to catch that 99% of the time. But we didn't in that specific moment. We threw a pick. The defense obviously has to go out there. We put them in a bad place. Our guys go over there and it's just on to the next play.
I appreciate that because there's no panic. There's no pointing fingers. It's just “Hey, it is what it is. It's over, move forward and play the next play. What are we going to do the next drive?” We have a bunch of guys on offense that really do get over the previous drive, the previous play, no matter how good or how bad it was, and they just move on to the next play. They don't get affected by much, which is what you want to see. You don't want to see up and down. You want to see people stay in the middle and execute. Block the emotions out.
On the combination of elite third-down efficiency and explosiveness: The third down stuff is partly receivers getting open and partly Cam scrambling around and getting a first down. You’ve got to have both if you're gonna be good on third down. Defenses spend a lot of their time on third downs. They're gonna get exotic. You're gonna see things that you haven't necessarily seen on tape. There's a chance that everybody gets covered. I'm gonna state the obvious, but it's the truth. Third down is the last down, so treat it like it's the last down. Meaning that whatever you gotta do to get the first down, get the first down.
I appreciate guys straining on third down. Because ultimately it is the last down and it needs to be treated as the last down. There's nothing more frustrating than not treating it like the last down. And you see it happen a lot. You’ve got to scratch and claw our guys' eyes out on third down, because we need another set of downs.
Now, the explosive play deal is more, once guys get the ball in their hands, the scheme of the play is over. Genetics and recruiting take over then.
On opening up the playbook in ACC play: I believe to my core that routine plays win games. I say that a lot and I will always believe that. There's a tipping point of being cute and creative and executing football. A lot of times, as the season goes, defenses know what you're good at. We know what they're good at. If you don't have some kind of trend, then you're probably not good on either side. That's just facts.
So, yeah, we're going to try to break trends and we're going to try to do some things that are creative every week. But there's going to be a majority of our game plan that is just trying to window dress what we do the best. That’s the way football is. Everybody's really like that. You try to see, “OK, well, we've done this a couple of times. Maybe we can do that off of that.” Little wrinkles, absolutely, those things happen.
But I'm a firm believer in “routine plays win games.” You watch games every weekend, NFL and college. A lot of the plays, 90% of them, are routine plays. It's the 10% or 5% that gets on SportsCenter and Twitter that everybody gets excited about, and they want to dissect it. That don't excite me. What excites me is throwing a hook route or throwing a cross route and throwing it on time and hitting them, or throwing an option route. That excites me more than the other stuff.
On dialing up a special play: That's going to happen every now and again. It will. And a lot of times you work on them all week and they don't hit. It's the other stuff that works. You’ve got to sprinkle some stuff in, and creativity is awesome. But there is a tipping point to where you could have too much of that stuff and it could go the other way.
So that's just game planning weekly to figure out what that balance is.
On extended plays: We do have a scramble drill that we practice, but since Cam’s been here, when we go against our defense, it kind of organically happens. The way we practice, we just let plays keep going. Kids pay attention. It doesn't take long if you're a receiver or a tight end or running back to figure out he's going to extend plays. So I better keep playing. The more that happens in practice situations, the more guys figure out, “Hey, look, this play could last six or seven seconds. I get my eyes on the quarterback and wherever he's going, I got to go.”
There are some basic scramble rules that we try to adhere to, but a lot of times that gets thrown out. Because ultimately you're just trying to find open space and in a direction that the quarterback is going.
On the play where Fletcher got hit for a TFL: They were man free and in a 4-2 box. We were motioning a tight end across and basically running split zone. And so that guy's defending the tight end. So he just took a gamble. He was trailing behind, so he knew that he was in trouble. He just shot the B-gap.
That's a very specific play you're talking about, where if that guy does his job, it's a very unsound thing to do in that particular defense they were running. That doesn't happen. But if he tracks the tight end, the ball is out the B gap for a big one. Or if we slip the tight end, the ball is out to the tight end for a big one because nobody's guarding him.
So that's just one of those plays where defense took a gamble and it paid off. We actually didn't take advantage of a gamble that was taken. If any one of the other things would have happened on offense, we would have had a big play. But that specific gamble that kid took paid off because we handed it to him. We couldn't have blocked him in that situation. There wasn't anybody targeting him. He was the man player on the tight end. He should have been tracking over the top, but he took a gamble and ran through the big gap and made a play. Good job by that kid if he recognized something in that play.
On Xavier Restrepo: Some people are natural fits for certain schemes. It was easy to see with him where he fit in our offense. We’ve always had a guy like that where you run a lot of option routes, you do a lot of things over the middle, a lot of the routes that he runs that are outbreaking. Guys like him get matched up against linebackers and safeties. They have good lateral mobility and they have good body control.
When you first get to a place, you're looking at bodies thinking about, “OK, that guy looks like an X, that guy looks like this, that guy looks like that.” When they start making plays and moving around, you can start filtering those guys into those spots because you're trying to figure out, “OK, what is the identity of that kid? What's he good at?”
And so, with Strep, it was easy to see that that kid was an H in our offense. It just so happened that it was a really good fit for him, and he has a really good skill set for what we ask him to do. He plays with a very, very, high motor. He strains very, very hard every play. If he's blocking, if he's running routes, if he doesn't get the ball. And so his effort really is the reason he gets open a lot. But his skill set and his ability to run those intermediate routes is really crucial for our offense.
I don't know what Strep would run in the 40, but I know that when he runs a route, he runs it fast. When he stops and starts, he stops and starts fast. And if the ball is in his cylinder, in his hands, in his whatever you want to call it, he typically can manipulate his body and make the catch. So those are all good things if you're a receiver.
