OC Shannon Dawson met with reporters to discuss the upcoming game against Syracuse. A summary of everything discussed is below:
On the challenge of playing in the Carrier Dome: We have things in place for games that we deem to be loud, and we'll just change the cadence up. We have multiple cadences we can go on. Obviously, the majority of it is clap. But when we played Florida game one, we went silent. We thought that was going to be a loud environment. It ended up not being too loud. If we get into a game and it's not what we thought it would be, we can switch from one to another. Cam has switched in between drives before. It's whatever cadence we deem appropriate for that game. And then once we get into that game, it usually changes, but sometimes it doesn't.
On the Syracuse defense: Their D-line is long and active. They get after it. Number 10 (Fadil Diggs), we played him last year [against Texas A&M]. He can really get after the quarterback. The Will linebacker, number eight (Justin Barron), is as good as any of the linebackers we faced this year. He's really, really instinctive. He's always around the ball. He plays hard. That's the one thing you see when you watch tape with those guys. They're really emotional. They play hard. We’ve got to match that, obviously.
On Jordan Lyle: He had a really good week of practice. That room's a talented room, and we just thought it was appropriate to get him some carries. You go into games and you have a certain plan of reps. You're going to try to do certain things. And sometimes a game just doesn't flow in a way that it works out.
My point with that is, it's not that he had bad weeks of practice before. He's a pretty consistent player. It was just good to get him in there because he's very talented and good to see him do a lot of good things.
On the hype around the offense after rough moments the year before: I don't pay much attention to the noise. I deal in reality. The reality is this: when I took over this offense they were the 100s. Last year, we were around 25 or 26 at the end of the year. To me, that's a huge jump. That was a lot of positive things.
Now, did the fans have the right to boo at times? Absolutely. I mean, my wife was probably booing at times. That's fine. If you buy a ticket and you're a fan, then you have every right to boo.
But I do know that there's a process to getting good at something. It doesn't happen overnight. So I was very happy with the jump we made last year. I just want to keep going forward.
On whether it’s tougher going from 125 to 25 or 25 to 1: That's a good question. Probably the first one, to be honest with you. Because with the second, you have guys that have banked reps at things and they know how you approach weeks. When people have more reps at something, they get better at it. You coach people over time and they understand the way the offense needs to lay out.
I do think the initial year is the hardest because you're trying to get coaches to think a certain way, too. You're trying to get everybody kind of organized and on the same page mentally and schematically. And that just takes a lot of time and energy.
On whether the offense has exceeded his expectations: I don't know about exceeded. I knew we had this potential. You never know how things are going to unfold. But I knew we had the potential to be good on offense because we're solid in every position group. Our O-line is really solid, our tight end room is solid. We're solid in every group. On paper, you feel good about it. There's so many different variables that factor into success that are sometimes out of your control. But I did feel good about what I saw on paper.
On the challenge of playing in the Carrier Dome: We have things in place for games that we deem to be loud, and we'll just change the cadence up. We have multiple cadences we can go on. Obviously, the majority of it is clap. But when we played Florida game one, we went silent. We thought that was going to be a loud environment. It ended up not being too loud. If we get into a game and it's not what we thought it would be, we can switch from one to another. Cam has switched in between drives before. It's whatever cadence we deem appropriate for that game. And then once we get into that game, it usually changes, but sometimes it doesn't.
On the Syracuse defense: Their D-line is long and active. They get after it. Number 10 (Fadil Diggs), we played him last year [against Texas A&M]. He can really get after the quarterback. The Will linebacker, number eight (Justin Barron), is as good as any of the linebackers we faced this year. He's really, really instinctive. He's always around the ball. He plays hard. That's the one thing you see when you watch tape with those guys. They're really emotional. They play hard. We’ve got to match that, obviously.
On Jordan Lyle: He had a really good week of practice. That room's a talented room, and we just thought it was appropriate to get him some carries. You go into games and you have a certain plan of reps. You're going to try to do certain things. And sometimes a game just doesn't flow in a way that it works out.
My point with that is, it's not that he had bad weeks of practice before. He's a pretty consistent player. It was just good to get him in there because he's very talented and good to see him do a lot of good things.
On the hype around the offense after rough moments the year before: I don't pay much attention to the noise. I deal in reality. The reality is this: when I took over this offense they were the 100s. Last year, we were around 25 or 26 at the end of the year. To me, that's a huge jump. That was a lot of positive things.
Now, did the fans have the right to boo at times? Absolutely. I mean, my wife was probably booing at times. That's fine. If you buy a ticket and you're a fan, then you have every right to boo.
But I do know that there's a process to getting good at something. It doesn't happen overnight. So I was very happy with the jump we made last year. I just want to keep going forward.
On whether it’s tougher going from 125 to 25 or 25 to 1: That's a good question. Probably the first one, to be honest with you. Because with the second, you have guys that have banked reps at things and they know how you approach weeks. When people have more reps at something, they get better at it. You coach people over time and they understand the way the offense needs to lay out.
I do think the initial year is the hardest because you're trying to get coaches to think a certain way, too. You're trying to get everybody kind of organized and on the same page mentally and schematically. And that just takes a lot of time and energy.
On whether the offense has exceeded his expectations: I don't know about exceeded. I knew we had this potential. You never know how things are going to unfold. But I knew we had the potential to be good on offense because we're solid in every position group. Our O-line is really solid, our tight end room is solid. We're solid in every group. On paper, you feel good about it. There's so many different variables that factor into success that are sometimes out of your control. But I did feel good about what I saw on paper.
