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Dawson Scheme notes

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E1k said:
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This is where the slower pace kills you.

You’re going against Tulane’s 3rd string QB.

You’ve got a 4th year starting QB.

You should be opening up the offense and playing fast. With enough plays run, the difference between your experienced 1st string QB and their inexperienced 3rd string would have come out.

Instead you artificially shorten the game, and in a small sample size it killed them.
 
mossmadness said:
This is where the slower pace kills you.

You’re going against Tulane’s 3rd string QB.

You’ve got a 4th year starting QB.

You should be opening up the offense and playing fast. With enough plays run, the difference between your experienced 1st string QB and their inexperienced 3rd string would have come out.

Instead you artificially shorten the game, and in a small sample size it killed them.
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You're not wrong, and I wanted to touch on this game specifically as an example of what happens when things don't go as planned. That said, the Houston OL and Tune did Dawson no favors this day, there was a 50+ yard scoop and score, 9 penalties and a blocked FG. Ibieta was also carving up the Houston D until he got hurt after their first drive.

Still there were a ton of points left on the board and 48 rushes for 3.5 ypc ain't gonna cut it. As soon as Ibieta went down they should have started slinging it and they didn't. Or rather, the incompletions started adding up and either Dawson lost faith in Tune or Tune lost faith in himself.

That's my biggest concern with the marriage of Mario and Dawson. When the going gets tough they both seem to want to play ball control. Nothing inherently wrong with that, but it's gonna be frustrating sometimes seeing us light up the scoreboard one week and be in a dogfight the next.
 
mossmadness said:
This is where the slower pace kills you.

You’re going against Tulane’s 3rd string QB.

You’ve got a 4th year starting QB.

You should be opening up the offense and playing fast. With enough plays run, the difference between your experienced 1st string QB and their inexperienced 3rd string would have come out.

Instead you artificially shorten the game, and in a small sample size it killed them.
Click to expand...
You’re adding another important part of the whole discussion: feel

I always somewhat admired Paul Johnson in a way where he could take basic ideas and be successful to varying degrees and a lot of it was based on his feel for how a game is unfolding. X and O is one thing but one INFURIATING part of last year was watching our offense gather momentum and then instead of forcing the D to stop us, we would stop ourselves

There was no instincts to what Gattis was doing

Not sure what we will get with Dawson but we all know how much college can almost be a snowball like effect with rhythm and timing

Not sure if what I’m getting at tied into with what you’re saying but decided to drop some random thoughts
 
mossmadness said:
This is where the slower pace kills you.

You’re going against Tulane’s 3rd string QB.

You’ve got a 4th year starting QB.

You should be opening up the offense and playing fast. With enough plays run, the difference between your experienced 1st string QB and their inexperienced 3rd string would have come out.

Instead you artificially shorten the game, and in a small sample size it killed them.
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So do you blame Dawson for the offense or give credit to Guidry for the defense?
 
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JD08 said:
So do you blame Dawson for the offense or give credit to Guidry for the defense?
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In the Tulane game at least, I think there was blame enough to go around. I think the Houston D could have done more but it's not like the Tulane QB lit them up. The procedural penalties and the fumble return TD are on the players, IMO.

But I don't let Dawson off the hook either. I think there were opportunities for him to impose more of his will on the D and instead he played to keep it close. Now was that Dawson or Dana? No idea and hindsight is always 20/20 but if there's a flaw to point out in Dawson's playcalling I think this game kinda shows it.
 
ghost2 said:
You're not wrong, and I wanted to touch on this game specifically as an example of what happens when things don't go as planned. That said, the Houston OL and Tune did Dawson no favors this day, there was a 50+ yard scoop and score, 9 penalties and a blocked FG. Ibieta was also carving up the Houston D until he got hurt after their first drive.

Still there were a ton of points left on the board and 48 rushes for 3.5 ypc ain't gonna cut it. As soon as Ibieta went down they should have started slinging it and they didn't. Or rather, the incompletions started adding up and either Dawson lost faith in Tune or Tune lost faith in himself.

That's my biggest concern with the marriage of Mario and Dawson. When the going gets tough they both seem to want to play ball control. Nothing inherently wrong with that, but it's gonna be frustrating sometimes seeing us light up the scoreboard one week and be in a dogfight the next.
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Full disclosure - I haven't watched enough complete games (especially losses) to get a feel for whether what happened with Tulane was just a "thing", or whether it's symptomatic of a larger trend. All OCs have games like that - tighter score than it should be, mistakes start piling up, etc. So I don't want to come down too hard or too soft either way.




Pause.
 
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ghost2 said:
The procedural penalties and the fumble return TD are on the players, IMO.
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That’s also where playing at this pace, and this kind of methodical style of offense, lets you get upset.

Bad luck happens. Dumb plays happen. You’re going to throw a pick 6. You’re going to have a FG blocked.

The smaller the sample size, the bigger the impact on the game those plays have.

Michigan lost to TCU not because of the two pick 6s or the dumb ref overturn call.

Michigan lost because they stayed within their slow and steady pace, and continued to force the run. Which shorted the game. Which made those INT returns and the blown call, have a big impact within that sample size.

If that game was 5 or 6 quarters long, Michigan wins even with all of that stuff happening, because the talent advantage comes out with enough plays run. Michigan should have been running an offense that did its best to fit 5 quarters worth of plays into those 4 quarters. Instead they basically tried to make it a 3 quarter game within those 4 quarters. And ran out of time for the talent advantage to really show up on the field.

Cristobal has a habit of doing that same thing at Oregon. And so does that Houston offense from the games I’ve watched.
 
JHallCanes said:
You’re adding another important part of the whole discussion: feel

I always somewhat admired Paul Johnson in a way where he could take basic ideas and be successful to varying degrees and a lot of it was based on his feel for how a game is unfolding. X and O is one thing but one INFURIATING part of last year was watching our offense gather momentum and then instead of forcing the D to stop us, we would stop ourselves

There was no instincts to what Gattis was doing

Not sure what we will get with Dawson but we all know how much college can almost be a snowball like effect with rhythm and timing

Not sure if what I’m getting at tied into with what you’re saying but decided to drop some random thoughts
Click to expand...

To me that's the single biggest difference between a play designer and a play caller. Gattis could design plays. So could James Coley and Dan Enos. What they all lacked was that feel for how to set things up, how to get the D to look left for 3 downs and then go right.

I look a little bit at redzone offense as one indicator of that "knack." Most OCs can get you inside the 20. What happens next usually is a good show of what you've got as a playcaller, IMO. Houston was 28th in redzone O last year.

Incidentally I feel like redzone O is also a great indicator of your overall talent level vs. comparable teams. Georgia had a mind-numbing 98.67%. Houston scored 88.7% of the time inside the 20. And Miami - 76.3%. Good for 110th in the country.
 
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mossmadness said:
That’s also where playing at this pace, and this kind of methodical style of offense, lets you get upset.

Bad luck happens. Dumb plays happen. You’re going to throw a pick 6. You’re going to have a FG blocked.

The smaller the sample size, the bigger the impact on the game those plays have.

Michigan lost to TCU not because of the two pick 6s or the dumb ref overturn call.

Michigan lost because they stayed within their slow and steady pace, and continued to force the run. Which shorted the game. Which made those INT returns and the blown call, have a big impact within that sample size.

If that game was 5 or 6 quarters long, Michigan wins even with all of that stuff happening, because the talent advantage comes out with enough plays run. Michigan should have been running an offense that did its best to fit 5 quarters worth of plays into those 4 quarters. Instead they basically tried to make it a 3 quarter game within those 4 quarters. And ran out of time for the talent advantage to really show up on the field.

Cristobal has a habit of doing that same thing at Oregon. And so does that Houston offense from the games I’ve watched.
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Agree completely, and I think there is a vast middle ground between running a Babers-esque 100 plays/game and whatever it was Gattis ran. I'd personally like to see us hover around 75-80 plays/game, depending on the situation. I think the red/yellow flag we're both seeing is the tendency to "turtle" the offense when things start going awry.

Edit: just looked it up and Houston ran 71 plays/game in 2022. We ran 72.5. Georgia ran 70. Leading the way was Texas Tech at 89.2.
 
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mossmadness said:
I’m not sure how to answer that.
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Well, it was just pointed out to me that Guidry was still at Marshall.

muppet-muppet-show.gif
 
ghost2 said:
Agree completely, and I think there is a vast middle ground between running a Babers-esque 100 plays/game and whatever it was Gattis ran. I'd personally like to see us hover around 75-80 plays/game, depending on the situation. I think the red/yellow flag we're both seeing is the tendency to "turtle" the offense when things start going awry.

Edit: just looked it up and Houston ran 71 plays/game in 2022. We ran 72.5. Georgia ran 70. Leading the way was Texas Tech at 89.2.
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Sorry to reply to my own post, but something interesting to note -

Dawson's first year at Houston they ran 76 plays per game. Year 2 they were only running 71.8.

In 2016 Southern Miss was 12th in the country in plays/game with nearly 81.

So could there be a discrepancy between Dawson and Holgerson in terms of their desired pace? And if so will Mario impose similar constraints?
 
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ghost2 said:
Sorry to reply to my own post, but something interesting to note -

Dawson's first year at Houston they ran 76 plays per game. Year 2 they were only running 71.8.

In 2016 Southern Miss was 12th in the country in plays/game with nearly 81.

So could there be a discrepancy between Dawson and Holgerson in terms of their desired pace? And if so will Mario impose similar constraints?
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I believe we’ll see more of what he did at Houston with pace. On and off , not pedal to the metal for 60 minutes like Lashlee, and i’m ok with that.
 
ghost2 said:
Sorry to reply to my own post, but something interesting to note -

Dawson's first year at Houston they ran 76 plays per game. Year 2 they were only running 71.8.

In 2016 Southern Miss was 12th in the country in plays/game with nearly 81.

So could there be a discrepancy between Dawson and Holgerson in terms of their desired pace? And if so will Mario impose similar constraints?
Click to expand...
The trend with AR guys has been to a more deliberate pace with the threat of going fast at any time.

Tempo has gone from 100% full throttle to more of a tool in the toolbox.
 
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