Miami's offense is on track so far, putting up 41 points against an SEC opponent and blowing away an FCS team. Shannon Dawson met with reporters to discuss the state of his group:
On managing snaps in a game like FAMU: It's tough in a way, but I just listen to Coach Cristobal. When he tells me to put the backups in, I put the backups in. So after drives, he said, “You want one more?” And I was like, “Yeah, I think one more is good.” At that point in the game, it was the third quarter. He told me that after this drive, no matter what happens, put the backups in. So, yeah, for me, it's easy. That would be a question for him. I just listen to him.
On what goes through his mind when Cam jumps for the pylon: Hold on to the ball. I don't worry about him getting hit. He's a football player. He's got pads on. He's trying to make a play. I think the ball could have went to a couple other places right there if we did our job right. But he did what he had to do because nobody was open. I like that about him. It’s a simple concept, but he understands third down's the last down. You’ve got to go get it if you don't have it.
More on Cam Ward: He's very calm. That's one thing I do appreciate. Me and him have similar demeanors on game day. Whether the drive was really good or something happened that's bad, you go and you look at what happened and you move forward. I like the fact that he has extreme short-term memory. Things don't bother him.
He sees the field in a really good way. Typically, the information he has when he comes over to the sidelines of why he did something is fairly accurate. We do have iPads now on the sidelines, so we can actually watch it and see, “Okay, well, you're right, so-and-so was here or so-and-so needs to do this.” Maybe it was a busted route or whatever. It's more communication on what we have to get better. But he has a very calm demeanor. He plays football with a very low pulse, which is what you should do.
On the RB rotation: Matt [Merritt] does a good job of controlling those guys’ reps. We're going to stay balanced. That's who we are. We can run the football and we can push people around. We're going to ultimately mix in that with attacking in the air.
The beauty of who we are is we're balanced. We can beat you either way. We’ve got to maintain that course. That's my job to keep it mixed up and to keep people off balance. We do have a handful of backs that we feel comfortable being in there, really any of them. It’s a talented room, and so he does a good job of rotating those guys. And those guys do a good job of cheering for each other, which I think is vitally important when you're in a crowded room.
On staying basic so far: As the season goes, the creativity week-to-week will be more and more. We've been pretty basic so far. Even in the first game, there were a couple of things with movements and stuff that we did. But as time goes on, people get more comfortable because they have more reps. You’ve got to try to figure out wrinkles to it and just ways to move to it and shift to it and do enough things out of those sets where you're not giving off anything to the defense is really the key.
On Cam’s freedom in the offense: He’s comfortable with no huddling. There was a handful of plays that were just “check with me” plays in the game. I feel comfortable lining up and giving him a set and letting him see the see the defense.
At times, our communication cuts off at 15. If I freeze or something takes a little bit of time, he'll just check the play. That happened a few times Saturday. The touchdown to Restrepo, he saw that they were playing a form of Cover Two. He checked the down-the-middle throw, which ended up working out. So I can't take credit for that one.
On Markel Bell: As the game went on, I thought he played better and better. He made a couple mistakes early, which you can understand. He’s been super solid in camp. The dude is really talented. And as the game went on, you saw that. His comfort level set in.
On the WR room: That room is no different than the running back room. Distribution of the ball is important to me. I like when a lot of guys touch the ball. Doesn't always happen. But right now we have a lot of skill guys. We have a lot of tight ends that are touching the ball, which I know I get asked about plenty, but they're touching the ball. So everybody relax. But a lot of people are touching the ball and those guys are really good playmakers. There’s a reason why the ball finds them is because they're open.
So I like distribution the way it is. I don't know if one guy will catch 100 balls this year. I would rather have six guys catch 50, to be honest with you. One guy might, I don't know. The receiver room is talented. The ball is getting spread out. The sun isn't going to shine on you every week. So when you get opportunities, make plays. Because we're going to roll other guys in there, and the ball is going to get distributed probably a little bit different than it did last year. People have to be comfortable with that.
And people have to find ways also to affect the game without the ball. That's very important when you play a skill position. It's finding a way to affect the game without the ball in your hand. Because if you play 60 snaps in a game, and you catch seven balls, that's a pretty good game. So just do the math. I'm not great at math, but I can subtract 60 from 7 and that's 43, right? 53? This Common Core math that my daughters are doing at home has me all screwed up. You've got to write everything out, and you've got to show everything. I can't do that. And so I help them with their math homework, and it's like, ****, I don't know the answer half the time because of the way they had to do it.
On the perimeter blocking: I didn't think it was great Saturday to be honest with you. I thought there were some things we could have done better Saturday. I thought it was really good Game One. I thought throughout camp I thought our blocking has improved a lot since the time I've been here. I do think Saturday we could have done a little bit better job in a couple different situations.
That probably has a little bit to do with playing a lot of young guys for a quarter and a half. My mind might be skewed a little bit because those guys are going to have some hurdles to overcome, just like the older guys did at some point in their career. If you separated everything, I would probably feel different about it. But as a whole, there were some times we could have blocked better on the perimeter.
On Jordan Lyle’s TD: I'm happy to have him here, and I expect a lot more touchdowns from him. He's a very talented kid. Great kid to be around, too. Everybody was happy for him, I can tell you that.
On Reese Poffenbarger: I thought he did good. Those were his first snaps here. At the end of the game like that, you're calling the game a little bit different. You're not sitting there throwing it every time, although [FAMU] did, which was kind of shocking to me at times. But with the way the game was called with him, I thought he did well.
You can tell he's very athletic. He gets out in the open and he can really run. He can throw it, too. It's just that we didn't do that a lot. The ball slipped out of his hand one time. I think one of them got covered where we were throwing Lofton on the corner route. But we didn't display a lot of that at the end. I thought he managed the calls in the game well.
On Emory Williams getting a redshirt: It’s tough. I went through it as a player, and I've done it multiple times as a coach. Having those discussions early helps. Because you can eliminate some landmines along the way, especially when you know it's going to be a challenging year for a kid, if you [tell them], “Hey, this is what it's going to be like.” That way, at least they have some understanding of the lay of the land.
And so we had a lot of conversations early in camp and throughout the off-season about what the plan was going to be for him. He knows exactly what the plan is, and I talk to him at the end of every week. He knew in that game, I wasn't going to play him any. He was fully aware of it. I'm completely transparent with all of them about what their role is and what they're going to be doing that game.
There's going to be games where we activate him. We have four (under the redshirt rule). That will be communicated to me from Coach Cristobal and then down the chain of command. Emory's handling it great. His attitude is great. He does a great job at practice. He's had a great camp. I know that older kids are better players. It wouldn't be very smart for me to waste a year on a kid with his talent level for no apparent reason.
On Notre Dame losing to Northern Illinois: I do think it's a good reminder. You don't have to look far for those reminders, to be honest with you. Look across the nation. When we got done with our game, LSU and Nicholls was a three-point game in the third quarter. Cal beat Auburn at Auburn. Some of those teams were 35 to 38-point favorites, and they're in a dogfight.
I just think that the margin of error in college football today is razor thin. If you don't come with your A-game and you don't prepare the right way, from Monday through Friday, then you could get knocked off fairly easily, especially when people have a bullseye on you. You're going to get their best. I talk to the offense a lot about just playing the game, not the name. It doesn't matter who the opponent is if you prepare. Monday is Monday, Tuesday is Tuesday, and just focus on, “Hey, this is the plan for this week.” These are the plays and let's get as good as we can get at them and execute them and understand the scheme the defense is going to be in in certain situations. All the rest will take care of itself.
There's a fine line in games like that. I watched the Notre Dame game this morning. I got in here and I put the game on and I watched the flow of the game. Ultimately, there's a clear line in the sand of when they lost focus. When things like that happen, you have to have older leadership. There's got to be something there to pull it back together and refocus. It's hard to get the train back on the track when it comes off. It just is. We've all been there, and I'm not talking bad about them or anything. Heck, we've all been in that situation. It’s a good reminder for guys to stay focused in the moment, because ultimately, the loss of focus is really the key. Once you lose it and you try to get it back, it's hard. So the key is don't lose it.
On the team’s attention to detail: We have a lot of older guys, and we have a lot of guys that have played a lot of football. I do think our focus is different. There's a lot of different things that can affect your play and affect your momentum. For instance, success and failure can slow you down. If success is really easy, then you kind of relax and that slows you down. And if you're not doing good, you press and that slows you down. I think the key is to stay right in the middle, and just execute with a clear mind and clear conscience.
Our guys have shown in two games the ability to overcome, like Florida. We threw a pick backed up. Not a very good play for us. Obviously, it could have been devastating. Defense goes out there and does a great job. Then we take the next drive and we go score. Everybody was calm. It is what it is, can't do anything about it, we move on and we execute the next drive. There were times in this game where at the end of the first half, we had two drives that sputtered out. Didn't look good, didn't execute good. We had people that were doing things that they shouldn't have been doing out there.
Well, at halftime, we got together, Cam and other older guys, and we went out there in the second half and we put it out of reach. Ultimately in games, there's going to be times where you're going to hit a lull or something's going to happen. No game goes perfect. Staying calm and staying together is key. And our guys seem to do that. We just got to keep doing it.
On Chris Johnson: I want to get him more and more involved. That room is very talented. The challenge at times is to keep people engaged. He's a talented kid that can do a lot of things. He's not just a guy that I put in there to do things with. He can run every run game scheme, protection. He's grown as a running back since I've been here, leaps and bounds. He's done a tremendous job.
I'm trying to reward him with some things, because he deserves it. He's a really good player, and he has the ability to be dynamic with the ball in his hand. Ultimately, that room is very talented and he knows that and we've communicated with him. We're going to keep finding ways to get good players involved, but without disrupting what we're doing. That's the easiest way to put it.
On managing snaps in a game like FAMU: It's tough in a way, but I just listen to Coach Cristobal. When he tells me to put the backups in, I put the backups in. So after drives, he said, “You want one more?” And I was like, “Yeah, I think one more is good.” At that point in the game, it was the third quarter. He told me that after this drive, no matter what happens, put the backups in. So, yeah, for me, it's easy. That would be a question for him. I just listen to him.
On what goes through his mind when Cam jumps for the pylon: Hold on to the ball. I don't worry about him getting hit. He's a football player. He's got pads on. He's trying to make a play. I think the ball could have went to a couple other places right there if we did our job right. But he did what he had to do because nobody was open. I like that about him. It’s a simple concept, but he understands third down's the last down. You’ve got to go get it if you don't have it.
More on Cam Ward: He's very calm. That's one thing I do appreciate. Me and him have similar demeanors on game day. Whether the drive was really good or something happened that's bad, you go and you look at what happened and you move forward. I like the fact that he has extreme short-term memory. Things don't bother him.
He sees the field in a really good way. Typically, the information he has when he comes over to the sidelines of why he did something is fairly accurate. We do have iPads now on the sidelines, so we can actually watch it and see, “Okay, well, you're right, so-and-so was here or so-and-so needs to do this.” Maybe it was a busted route or whatever. It's more communication on what we have to get better. But he has a very calm demeanor. He plays football with a very low pulse, which is what you should do.
On the RB rotation: Matt [Merritt] does a good job of controlling those guys’ reps. We're going to stay balanced. That's who we are. We can run the football and we can push people around. We're going to ultimately mix in that with attacking in the air.
The beauty of who we are is we're balanced. We can beat you either way. We’ve got to maintain that course. That's my job to keep it mixed up and to keep people off balance. We do have a handful of backs that we feel comfortable being in there, really any of them. It’s a talented room, and so he does a good job of rotating those guys. And those guys do a good job of cheering for each other, which I think is vitally important when you're in a crowded room.
On staying basic so far: As the season goes, the creativity week-to-week will be more and more. We've been pretty basic so far. Even in the first game, there were a couple of things with movements and stuff that we did. But as time goes on, people get more comfortable because they have more reps. You’ve got to try to figure out wrinkles to it and just ways to move to it and shift to it and do enough things out of those sets where you're not giving off anything to the defense is really the key.
On Cam’s freedom in the offense: He’s comfortable with no huddling. There was a handful of plays that were just “check with me” plays in the game. I feel comfortable lining up and giving him a set and letting him see the see the defense.
At times, our communication cuts off at 15. If I freeze or something takes a little bit of time, he'll just check the play. That happened a few times Saturday. The touchdown to Restrepo, he saw that they were playing a form of Cover Two. He checked the down-the-middle throw, which ended up working out. So I can't take credit for that one.
On Markel Bell: As the game went on, I thought he played better and better. He made a couple mistakes early, which you can understand. He’s been super solid in camp. The dude is really talented. And as the game went on, you saw that. His comfort level set in.
On the WR room: That room is no different than the running back room. Distribution of the ball is important to me. I like when a lot of guys touch the ball. Doesn't always happen. But right now we have a lot of skill guys. We have a lot of tight ends that are touching the ball, which I know I get asked about plenty, but they're touching the ball. So everybody relax. But a lot of people are touching the ball and those guys are really good playmakers. There’s a reason why the ball finds them is because they're open.
So I like distribution the way it is. I don't know if one guy will catch 100 balls this year. I would rather have six guys catch 50, to be honest with you. One guy might, I don't know. The receiver room is talented. The ball is getting spread out. The sun isn't going to shine on you every week. So when you get opportunities, make plays. Because we're going to roll other guys in there, and the ball is going to get distributed probably a little bit different than it did last year. People have to be comfortable with that.
And people have to find ways also to affect the game without the ball. That's very important when you play a skill position. It's finding a way to affect the game without the ball in your hand. Because if you play 60 snaps in a game, and you catch seven balls, that's a pretty good game. So just do the math. I'm not great at math, but I can subtract 60 from 7 and that's 43, right? 53? This Common Core math that my daughters are doing at home has me all screwed up. You've got to write everything out, and you've got to show everything. I can't do that. And so I help them with their math homework, and it's like, ****, I don't know the answer half the time because of the way they had to do it.
On the perimeter blocking: I didn't think it was great Saturday to be honest with you. I thought there were some things we could have done better Saturday. I thought it was really good Game One. I thought throughout camp I thought our blocking has improved a lot since the time I've been here. I do think Saturday we could have done a little bit better job in a couple different situations.
That probably has a little bit to do with playing a lot of young guys for a quarter and a half. My mind might be skewed a little bit because those guys are going to have some hurdles to overcome, just like the older guys did at some point in their career. If you separated everything, I would probably feel different about it. But as a whole, there were some times we could have blocked better on the perimeter.
On Jordan Lyle’s TD: I'm happy to have him here, and I expect a lot more touchdowns from him. He's a very talented kid. Great kid to be around, too. Everybody was happy for him, I can tell you that.
On Reese Poffenbarger: I thought he did good. Those were his first snaps here. At the end of the game like that, you're calling the game a little bit different. You're not sitting there throwing it every time, although [FAMU] did, which was kind of shocking to me at times. But with the way the game was called with him, I thought he did well.
You can tell he's very athletic. He gets out in the open and he can really run. He can throw it, too. It's just that we didn't do that a lot. The ball slipped out of his hand one time. I think one of them got covered where we were throwing Lofton on the corner route. But we didn't display a lot of that at the end. I thought he managed the calls in the game well.
On Emory Williams getting a redshirt: It’s tough. I went through it as a player, and I've done it multiple times as a coach. Having those discussions early helps. Because you can eliminate some landmines along the way, especially when you know it's going to be a challenging year for a kid, if you [tell them], “Hey, this is what it's going to be like.” That way, at least they have some understanding of the lay of the land.
And so we had a lot of conversations early in camp and throughout the off-season about what the plan was going to be for him. He knows exactly what the plan is, and I talk to him at the end of every week. He knew in that game, I wasn't going to play him any. He was fully aware of it. I'm completely transparent with all of them about what their role is and what they're going to be doing that game.
There's going to be games where we activate him. We have four (under the redshirt rule). That will be communicated to me from Coach Cristobal and then down the chain of command. Emory's handling it great. His attitude is great. He does a great job at practice. He's had a great camp. I know that older kids are better players. It wouldn't be very smart for me to waste a year on a kid with his talent level for no apparent reason.
On Notre Dame losing to Northern Illinois: I do think it's a good reminder. You don't have to look far for those reminders, to be honest with you. Look across the nation. When we got done with our game, LSU and Nicholls was a three-point game in the third quarter. Cal beat Auburn at Auburn. Some of those teams were 35 to 38-point favorites, and they're in a dogfight.
I just think that the margin of error in college football today is razor thin. If you don't come with your A-game and you don't prepare the right way, from Monday through Friday, then you could get knocked off fairly easily, especially when people have a bullseye on you. You're going to get their best. I talk to the offense a lot about just playing the game, not the name. It doesn't matter who the opponent is if you prepare. Monday is Monday, Tuesday is Tuesday, and just focus on, “Hey, this is the plan for this week.” These are the plays and let's get as good as we can get at them and execute them and understand the scheme the defense is going to be in in certain situations. All the rest will take care of itself.
There's a fine line in games like that. I watched the Notre Dame game this morning. I got in here and I put the game on and I watched the flow of the game. Ultimately, there's a clear line in the sand of when they lost focus. When things like that happen, you have to have older leadership. There's got to be something there to pull it back together and refocus. It's hard to get the train back on the track when it comes off. It just is. We've all been there, and I'm not talking bad about them or anything. Heck, we've all been in that situation. It’s a good reminder for guys to stay focused in the moment, because ultimately, the loss of focus is really the key. Once you lose it and you try to get it back, it's hard. So the key is don't lose it.
On the team’s attention to detail: We have a lot of older guys, and we have a lot of guys that have played a lot of football. I do think our focus is different. There's a lot of different things that can affect your play and affect your momentum. For instance, success and failure can slow you down. If success is really easy, then you kind of relax and that slows you down. And if you're not doing good, you press and that slows you down. I think the key is to stay right in the middle, and just execute with a clear mind and clear conscience.
Our guys have shown in two games the ability to overcome, like Florida. We threw a pick backed up. Not a very good play for us. Obviously, it could have been devastating. Defense goes out there and does a great job. Then we take the next drive and we go score. Everybody was calm. It is what it is, can't do anything about it, we move on and we execute the next drive. There were times in this game where at the end of the first half, we had two drives that sputtered out. Didn't look good, didn't execute good. We had people that were doing things that they shouldn't have been doing out there.
Well, at halftime, we got together, Cam and other older guys, and we went out there in the second half and we put it out of reach. Ultimately in games, there's going to be times where you're going to hit a lull or something's going to happen. No game goes perfect. Staying calm and staying together is key. And our guys seem to do that. We just got to keep doing it.
On Chris Johnson: I want to get him more and more involved. That room is very talented. The challenge at times is to keep people engaged. He's a talented kid that can do a lot of things. He's not just a guy that I put in there to do things with. He can run every run game scheme, protection. He's grown as a running back since I've been here, leaps and bounds. He's done a tremendous job.
I'm trying to reward him with some things, because he deserves it. He's a really good player, and he has the ability to be dynamic with the ball in his hand. Ultimately, that room is very talented and he knows that and we've communicated with him. We're going to keep finding ways to get good players involved, but without disrupting what we're doing. That's the easiest way to put it.
