Small College, Big Ideas
February 23, 2011 03:07 PM | General
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – Shannon Dawson is a perfect example of a below-average football player turning himself into an above-average football coach. In his mind things are all relative.
“I think me being an average or below-average quarterback probably helps me because I can relate to why kids can’t do things,” Dawson explained recently. “I can watch a quarterback not do something right and I can say, wait a minute, I can relate to that. That’s probably what I would do – throw it in the dirt. If I was a great player, I’d probably get frustrated with it - it’s easy, why can’t he do that?”
Not that West Virginia University’s new inside receivers coach was a bad player - he actually performed pretty well as a quarterback and wide receiver at Division II Wingate (N.C.) University – it’s just that Wingate is not Notre Dame, Florida or Texas.
“I played exactly where I needed to play,” said Dawson. “I wasn’t a Division I player. I think Division II was great for me. I tell kids all the time, if they don’t fit what we do or they don’t think they are that good there are 600 schools out there that play football. If you really want to play football you can find a school.
“I lived in Louisiana and I played Division II football in North Carolina,” he said. “I wanted to play football, that’s the bottom line. I had a passion for it. I traveled around and I moved with Dana (Holgorsen) and I found a place where I could play.”
Prior to arriving at West Virginia, Dawson cut his teeth in small college football, first as a player at Wingate and then as a coach at places such as Southeastern Louisiana, Millsaps College and Stephen F. Austin. Many of the innovations taking place in the game today were borne out of the small college game, some believe, because coaches at that level are frequently short on resources and talent.
A lot of what Dawson does today comes from those experiences he had working with Hal Mumme at Southeastern Louisiana. In fact, the roots of Mumme’s coaching tree extend to Dana Holgorsen, who Dawson got to know when the two were at Wingate. And some of Mumme’s ideas on how to attack defenses actually came from observing what LaVell Edwards did at BYU in the early 1980s. Edwards was one of the game’s great innovators.
“It was obvious to Coach Mumme that BYU didn’t have the talent of the people they were playing against but they were beating them,” Dawson explained. “He was like, ‘How are these guys competing?’ The bottom line is (the passing game) levels the playing field. By spreading people out it minimizes their ability to out-physical you.”
Mumme would also tell Dawson that the people who bought tickets and used their hard-earned money to come to games wanted to be entertained. Of course throwing the football is one way to entertain fans.
“This is his opinion on the passing game: fans like to see the ball more and you see the ball when it’s in the air,” Dawson said. “You don’t see it when you’re handing it off. I think that’s true. Running the football is a lot easier than throwing it as far as calling the game because it’s safer.”
Dawson isn’t one of those coaches afraid to take a few risks. When he was offensive coordinator at Stephen F. Austin he once called 89 passes, his quarterback completing more than 60 of them. Stephen F. Austin may have lost the game in triple overtime but the Lumberjacks went down swinging.
“If I would have run it every time we would have gotten beat in regulation,” Dawson pointed out.
Dawson’s high-energy passing attack injected life in a morbid Stephen F. Austin program. Before his arrival in 2008, SFA was winless and averaging just 16 points per game in 2007. Two years later, the Lumberjacks led the nation in passing yards and were second in total offense on the way to a 10-3 record and a second-round appearance in the national playoffs.
Dawson says the core principles of what West Virginia is going to do in the passing game are really not much different than what people running the option are doing out of the spread.
“What an option team is trying to do is they have all these guys lined up … one, two, three, four, five … well, these three guys in the middle they’re trying to distribute the ball to them as much as possible and make it kind of equal where defenses can’t focus on one guy,” he explained. “They do it by running the football and we do it by passing the football.”
The ideal scenario, according to Dawson, is to have five or six options in the passing game and a back with good ball skills to add an additional threat in the running game. If an offense has all of those things, what does a defense then take away?
“If we’ve got five guys who can possess the ball and make plays, at the end of the day wouldn’t it be great if each of those guys had 10 catches? Who is the defense going to focus on then?” Dawson said. “It’s not great if you have one guy with 15 catches and these other guys have two.”
Dawson hasn’t been here long enough to evaluate the offensive talent in the tri-state area, but odds are pretty high that he is going to have to travel long distances to recruit the type of players with the skills needed to play in this offense, particularly at the quarterback position. In Texas, for example, a lot of the high schools there are running sophisticated passing attacks.
“I think a lot of it has to do with what the college does in that state,” Dawson explained. “I think when Coach (Mike) Leach started coaching at Texas Tech, obviously those high school coaches clinic with those coaches so you can pretty much look around the nation and what the big schools are doing in that state, high schools start doing it because they get there and they learn it.”
Dawson can envision that also happening to a degree in West Virginia when high school coaches start visiting with Dana Holgorsen’s staff and learn some of their offensive philosophies.
“We’ll start throwing the ball around and doing some different deals and coaches will come in and clinic with us and it will probably change the culture a little bit of what high schools do around here,” Dawson noted. “I know it did in Texas. In the seven-on-seven passing leagues in Texas, obviously that changed the face dramatically.
“We’ll recruit Texas and if there are quarterbacks there that we like - and there are some coming up that are really good – we’ll go try and get them,” Dawson said.
That doesn’t necessarily preclude West Virginia from recruiting quarterbacks around here, but Dawson says it will be doubly important to get those local kids in camp so the coaches can more closely evaluate their skills.
“Coaches can sit with a player every single minute of the day and watch them throw, critique their throws and let them see what you do,” he said.
Dawson is even probably willing to observe and critique the below-average quarterbacks who sometimes throw the ball in the dirt, which is something he can certainly relate to.
“I think me being an average or below-average quarterback probably helps me because I can relate to why kids can’t do things,” Dawson explained recently. “I can watch a quarterback not do something right and I can say, wait a minute, I can relate to that. That’s probably what I would do – throw it in the dirt. If I was a great player, I’d probably get frustrated with it - it’s easy, why can’t he do that?”
Not that West Virginia University’s new inside receivers coach was a bad player - he actually performed pretty well as a quarterback and wide receiver at Division II Wingate (N.C.) University – it’s just that Wingate is not Notre Dame, Florida or Texas.
“I played exactly where I needed to play,” said Dawson. “I wasn’t a Division I player. I think Division II was great for me. I tell kids all the time, if they don’t fit what we do or they don’t think they are that good there are 600 schools out there that play football. If you really want to play football you can find a school.
“I lived in Louisiana and I played Division II football in North Carolina,” he said. “I wanted to play football, that’s the bottom line. I had a passion for it. I traveled around and I moved with Dana (Holgorsen) and I found a place where I could play.”
Prior to arriving at West Virginia, Dawson cut his teeth in small college football, first as a player at Wingate and then as a coach at places such as Southeastern Louisiana, Millsaps College and Stephen F. Austin. Many of the innovations taking place in the game today were borne out of the small college game, some believe, because coaches at that level are frequently short on resources and talent.
A lot of what Dawson does today comes from those experiences he had working with Hal Mumme at Southeastern Louisiana. In fact, the roots of Mumme’s coaching tree extend to Dana Holgorsen, who Dawson got to know when the two were at Wingate. And some of Mumme’s ideas on how to attack defenses actually came from observing what LaVell Edwards did at BYU in the early 1980s. Edwards was one of the game’s great innovators.
“It was obvious to Coach Mumme that BYU didn’t have the talent of the people they were playing against but they were beating them,” Dawson explained. “He was like, ‘How are these guys competing?’ The bottom line is (the passing game) levels the playing field. By spreading people out it minimizes their ability to out-physical you.”
Mumme would also tell Dawson that the people who bought tickets and used their hard-earned money to come to games wanted to be entertained. Of course throwing the football is one way to entertain fans.
“This is his opinion on the passing game: fans like to see the ball more and you see the ball when it’s in the air,” Dawson said. “You don’t see it when you’re handing it off. I think that’s true. Running the football is a lot easier than throwing it as far as calling the game because it’s safer.”
Dawson isn’t one of those coaches afraid to take a few risks. When he was offensive coordinator at Stephen F. Austin he once called 89 passes, his quarterback completing more than 60 of them. Stephen F. Austin may have lost the game in triple overtime but the Lumberjacks went down swinging.
“If I would have run it every time we would have gotten beat in regulation,” Dawson pointed out.
Dawson’s high-energy passing attack injected life in a morbid Stephen F. Austin program. Before his arrival in 2008, SFA was winless and averaging just 16 points per game in 2007. Two years later, the Lumberjacks led the nation in passing yards and were second in total offense on the way to a 10-3 record and a second-round appearance in the national playoffs.
Dawson says the core principles of what West Virginia is going to do in the passing game are really not much different than what people running the option are doing out of the spread.
“What an option team is trying to do is they have all these guys lined up … one, two, three, four, five … well, these three guys in the middle they’re trying to distribute the ball to them as much as possible and make it kind of equal where defenses can’t focus on one guy,” he explained. “They do it by running the football and we do it by passing the football.”
The ideal scenario, according to Dawson, is to have five or six options in the passing game and a back with good ball skills to add an additional threat in the running game. If an offense has all of those things, what does a defense then take away?
“If we’ve got five guys who can possess the ball and make plays, at the end of the day wouldn’t it be great if each of those guys had 10 catches? Who is the defense going to focus on then?” Dawson said. “It’s not great if you have one guy with 15 catches and these other guys have two.”
Dawson hasn’t been here long enough to evaluate the offensive talent in the tri-state area, but odds are pretty high that he is going to have to travel long distances to recruit the type of players with the skills needed to play in this offense, particularly at the quarterback position. In Texas, for example, a lot of the high schools there are running sophisticated passing attacks.
“I think a lot of it has to do with what the college does in that state,” Dawson explained. “I think when Coach (Mike) Leach started coaching at Texas Tech, obviously those high school coaches clinic with those coaches so you can pretty much look around the nation and what the big schools are doing in that state, high schools start doing it because they get there and they learn it.”
Dawson can envision that also happening to a degree in West Virginia when high school coaches start visiting with Dana Holgorsen’s staff and learn some of their offensive philosophies.
“We’ll start throwing the ball around and doing some different deals and coaches will come in and clinic with us and it will probably change the culture a little bit of what high schools do around here,” Dawson noted. “I know it did in Texas. In the seven-on-seven passing leagues in Texas, obviously that changed the face dramatically.
“We’ll recruit Texas and if there are quarterbacks there that we like - and there are some coming up that are really good – we’ll go try and get them,” Dawson said.
That doesn’t necessarily preclude West Virginia from recruiting quarterbacks around here, but Dawson says it will be doubly important to get those local kids in camp so the coaches can more closely evaluate their skills.
“Coaches can sit with a player every single minute of the day and watch them throw, critique their throws and let them see what you do,” he said.
Dawson is even probably willing to observe and critique the below-average quarterbacks who sometimes throw the ball in the dirt, which is something he can certainly relate to.
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