Southern Miss fan here
- Thread starter BBQ Eagle
- Start date
May not "decide it" but if you had to prove that the kid was the best in the SEC and top 3 in country what would you use?
Post-season recognition last year and preseason recognition this year are good starts.
Wouldn't you think taking the opinion of a myopic, homer-biased, fan supersedes national media?
I mean, it's part of real investigative prognostication. Vegas reads these threads and sides with the optimists...always.
Ask F. Maggard who is the best center in the sec... I would take his word over about any sports writer who has probably never played a down of football in their life
Another Southern Miss fan here;
You guys have confirmed every fear I had/have about Dawson and even added one or two. I'm left with the sick feeling I had when we hired Ellis Johnson and the added misery upon each of his hires. our new HC is no EJ at least, so perhaps he can snuff out Dawson and set him straight before he lets it get too bad...and then fire him after this year. of course, if prefer if we were all wrong about him and we score 40 a game. if this guy was competent, I think we could come out with a close win. if not, we get smoked by you guys.
You guys have confirmed every fear I had/have about Dawson and even added one or two. I'm left with the sick feeling I had when we hired Ellis Johnson and the added misery upon each of his hires. our new HC is no EJ at least, so perhaps he can snuff out Dawson and set him straight before he lets it get too bad...and then fire him after this year. of course, if prefer if we were all wrong about him and we score 40 a game. if this guy was competent, I think we could come out with a close win. if not, we get smoked by you guys.
Any scoop out of your scrimmage from yesterday? I saw a headline that mentioned how the defense won but has any further "scuttlebutt" made the rounds about how Dawson's O has fared in camp. Thank in advance
I mean, I'd like to tell you guys that you all may have a solid offense this year, but I don't see it. Some Southern Miss fans may say that we're scapegoating him, but Dawson is a guy that:
- Was hired from West Virginia to UK, where Dana Holgorsen called the plays
- Claimed that he and Dana at least "agree" on 75% of the play calls
- Said that he never attempted the Wildcat formation, and also said that he doesn't like to use tights ends because "it's difficult for them to create mismatches" (this is all while we have a freshman All-American tight end mind you), and he said all of this in his very first press conference
- Was criticized by Stoops in multiple games for his poor play-calling. examples: 3rd and one, and he calls a pass play; fade routes more specifically, and he did this a number of times this season, against Auburn in the final minute of the game (that we should have won), he called a run play despite there being 0 timeouts left for UK, and Auburn was completely unable to stop UK's receivers at that time, and then being completely unable to punch it into the endzone against Vanderbilt on multiple trips down because of silly play-calls that have no creativity or deception in them, so on and so forth.
- Offense would open up games hot often. Some games we would end the half 21-7 or so (South Carolina and Louisville come to mind), and then in the 2nd half, he would make no adjustment and then the offense would be stagnant for the remainder of the game. We managed to win @South Carolina despite that, but not being able to put any points on the board, or even move the ball against Louisville killed us. Also fair to note that one of the touchdowns against Louisville was a pick 6.
- Was in an altercation with a position coach during halftime of a game
- Seemingly every wide receiver applauded his firing.
- Any time we had a running back that was destroying defenses (specifically Boom Williams), Dawson would sit him, sometimes for the rest of the game, which attributed to the stagnant offense.
- Literally won the Mizzou game on the back of our freshman tight end, maybe used him in the receiving game a couple more passes all season long, but primarily used him as a lead blocker.
- Locker room eventually became divided because of Dawson's preferential treatment towards some players, and unfair misuse towards other players.
I can safely say that the Dawson hiring has been, by far, the worst thing that UK has done under Mark Stoops. Seemingly every other move that Stoops made since he's been here has been a move forward. Consistent defensive improvement, wildly improved talent and depth on both sides of the ball, player development, performance on the field (went from being a 2 win team under Joker Phillips that was threatened to lose by even the weakest teams in D1 football, to a team that was a play away in several games last year, and could have won 9 games if those plays were made). Offense even improved from what it was, up until Dawson took over. Then it was a very surprising regression from what we got from Neal Brown at OC, who is now the HC at Troy.
[QUOTE="Rhavicc, post: 5005292, member: 12698"}
- Was in an altercation with a position coach during halftime of a game
[/QUOTE]
I've seen this written several times on here. Not doubting it at all but where did this originate and do we know any further details?
- Was in an altercation with a position coach during halftime of a game
[/QUOTE]
I've seen this written several times on here. Not doubting it at all but where did this originate and do we know any further details?
In fairness no one outside the coaching circle knows exactly what happened with UK and Dawson. As you know he was OC for Holgerson at Wva and they ran a high scoring offense. So on paper he appeared to be an attractive hire, but in reality Holgerson was the mastermind of the offense and called the plays, Dawson was more of his subordinate then a guy running the offense. When he came here he replaced another Air Raid guy off the Mumme tree Neil Brown who had done a fairly good job. However his offense did not resemble any Air Raid that I have seen before. He threw the ball deep a lot against man coverage and was for the most part unsuccessful as the QB we had did not have a lot of accuracy. Also the QB had good running ability but he took that out of the offense and made it easier to defend. Some of his play calling was questionable. The offense was ineffective and by mid season there was dissent among the offensive players. Some players wanted a different QB (Barker), others felt like they were not being given amble opportunities. His interviews often sounded very defensive, like a guy that didn't really have a lot of confidence in what he was doing. In the end the head coach stepped in and put his fingers on the offense in a damage control effort. The starting QB (Towles) transferred to BC after the season.
So you can make of it what you will. I'm never for condemning anyone to life long failure for doing what appears to be a poor job, as everyone can self analyze themselves, face their mistakes and improve on their previous efforts. Many coaches have had poor starts in positions but went on to be successful. Maybe Dawson has a better situation at SMU then he did here and maybe he can use the learning experience to become a better coach - time will only tell.
We look forward to seeing Dawson, that is on the vistors side coaching. I think you will like the trip but not the results. UK38 SM24
apparently our QB only played a few series in the scrimmage and arguably "won" while he was in. the Off def won the last scrimmage. so that gives me hope. theres no chance of picking favorites at QB bc everyone knows who will be starting. I'm hoping if Dawson makes dumb calls that Mullens will audible to something sensible. you would think he will have some flexibility in doing so.
Defense won yesterday big time. Created 4 turnovers, 2 picks returned for TD's. Offense was steady, but our QB1 (Mullens) got rolled up on early on... He was fine, but it prompted the coaches to pull him out the rest of the scrimmage. Conversely, the offense dominated the last scrimmage and there were no turnovers. So it has been back and forth, which I'm considering a good thing. Never good to have an obviously deficient side of the ball at this point in camp.
I fully expect to lose this game. This isn't Bama or Georgia, we are not that good. You will probably be favored, or close to a pick em. I advise you check our history before coming on here thinking we are some powerhouse. We are not.
I wouldn't be concerned one way or another, as long as competitive plays were made, which will translate well for you guys at the C-USA level. Last thing ya wanna see though is a lot of bad plays (pick sixes, that many turnovers, etc.)
That does lead me to another point about Dawson though. I doubt you'll see much improvement from your backup throughout the season. Hinshaw (the new QB coach, came from Cincinnati with Eddie Gran) was actually pretty appalled with Drew Barker's poor footwork when he arrived. Since then, he's worked with Barker, and the footwork has improved immensely, the turnovers are way down, and the accuracy is way up.
Dawson never played the QB position, so that plays a big role in some of his more questionable coaching methods, specifically the whole "don't scramble from the pocket, or you'll likely be inaccurate", which makes sense, but that was the least of our worries. One full season, and he didn't teach Drew Barker a single thing about proper footwork, which Drew learned to do effectively over the spring, so it's not as if it was difficult for him to learn. Dawson just didn't do a good job in teaching him.
That may not be an issue that you'll immediately face (hopefully not, because it would probably mean injury for you guys, which nobody should ever want to see), but if he lasts more than one season at Southern Miss, it's one you'll face down the road.
Last year, Toth graded out as the second best center in the SEC, and the guy in front of him did not return. 247sports does a ranking of their opinion of the top 247 players (novel idea, but I hate it due to my dislike for odd numbers), and Toth is ranked as the 3rd best center in the nation behind the West Virginia center, and the Wisconsin center. Linemen are a strange group to rank due to a lack of statistics, so all you can really go off of is the lack of statistics and the eye test. Toth is absolutely one of the best in the nation though.
You were obviously drunk. At least if I were you I would claim that. Because those posts...nightmare
Ignorant and wildly uninformed post.
dude...its about winning/losing...I love you UK football/basketball...I'm not getting into a worthless debate with you, all things consider moral....I'm not upset, this is stupid...I'll man up and apologize...I hope we beat every team on our schedule...
Don't let everyone know how stupid you sound, it's already easy to see, coming on an opponent acting butt hurt.
Been around UK Football for too many years to take ANY game for granted. Southern Miss has absolutely nothing to lose, but if we were to lose it would absolutely down the entire season.
Don't know how good they are, don't care. We just need to be better on that day. Avoid injuries, and show signs of improvement over last year.
GO CATS
I see where you're coming from, we turned from a for sure cupcake to a dangerous game over the course of one season. I know you feel differently because this is supposed to be one of the OOC cupcake filler games, but I think a close loss to USM does not necessarily end your season. And we do have something to lose, because if we have a loss on our resume and you finish out your season like Nebraska did for us last year (5-7 or worse) then even though you are an SEC team, that is a loss to a team with a losing record on our resume.
Not wishing that on your team or anticipating that, just an additional perspective on that sentiment. Because of where your program is, it is an opportunity for you guys to prove that you are stepping it up to the next level or an opportunity for us to do the same. So I look forward to a very competitive game.
I will say with all do respect. I've spent way too many days in Hattiesburg and that town sucks.
I just mentioned a couple above. He graded out as the best returning center in the SEC following last season (behind only one center, who did not come back), and 247sports listed him as the 3rd best center in the nation this season (with their top 247 CFB player rankings).
For the record USM got a top notch center too that's on the watch list for exactly the same awards that Toth is. So, the game will feature two of college footballs best centers.
Dawson digs the long ball. Unfortunately, while he had his QB standing in the pocket waiting for WR routes to get 20 yds down field and break, our OT's where getting overmanned and we ended up leading the conference in sacks. We should have realized when he said how tough his offense would be on tackles before the season started what was coming.
He openly said multiple times during interviews that he didn't like running with his QB and backed it up with action. No team had to respect the QB run because it wasn't a part of the game so they just pinned their ears back and fired off on the passer.
He also didn't respond well to criticism or adversity. He often got smarmy during post game interviews when asked about bad decisions or calls. Responses like "it would have been a good play if it worked" got old.
Worst of all is the friction he caused in the locker room though. It's the most divided locker room I can remember us having in a long time (probably since Brooks first year when he had to weed out some bad seeds in 2002). We had players publicly trashing other players, coaches fighting in the locker room during games, team mates that would lay down on plays designed for them, and our best offense player quit half way through the season (Stoops got him back) due to the jackassery of Dawson.
He's easily been the least favorite coach of mine since Elliot Uzelac put Tim Couch in at Auburn for his first game action and had him run the option.
What my final straw was for Dawson is when he stated that his play calling does not change with the personel that is on the field.
That rang true when ur down inside the 5 yard line on 3 turnovers and get no points at all from it. Maybe bring Jacob Hyde in as full back and get behind his big 330 lb ***?? He bulldozes guys out of the way and he never used him. Maybe use him as bait and go opposite direction? The 12 plays he ran obviously did not work.
Also the game between us will be a hard fought game which i think we win by a TD-10 points. If our front 7 cannot get a pass rush then its gonna be a tight game.
That rang true when ur down inside the 5 yard line on 3 turnovers and get no points at all from it. Maybe bring Jacob Hyde in as full back and get behind his big 330 lb ***?? He bulldozes guys out of the way and he never used him. Maybe use him as bait and go opposite direction? The 12 plays he ran obviously did not work.
Also the game between us will be a hard fought game which i think we win by a TD-10 points. If our front 7 cannot get a pass rush then its gonna be a tight game.
One of the frequent criticisms of Dawson was his alleged penchant for throwing too many deep balls. FWIW, actual stats do not suggest that was the case. Short of actually tracking every pass thrown in every game the best statistical indicators are Yards/Attempt and Long Balls Completed/Game. YPA is usually regarded as the best indicator of the "length" of your passing game. Year in and year out the national average hovers just over the 7.0 mark. For 2015:
6.3 YPA: #103 nationally and a full yard under the 2015 national average (7.3)
10 yard+ completions/game: 8.3 #77 nationally
20 yard+ completions/game: 3.2 #61 nationally
Peace
6.3 YPA: #103 nationally and a full yard under the 2015 national average (7.3)
10 yard+ completions/game: 8.3 #77 nationally
20 yard+ completions/game: 3.2 #61 nationally
Peace
well he def is sounding like the turd bucket I was afraid he was...and then some! I gotta ask though....how did Stoops let him get away with causing all this friction? in the end, its the HC's job to keep the team together and coaches (and players) in line. I don't see our head coach letting this guy cause these types of internal problems. as far as the players trashing each other and players laying down, etc....is all that on Dawson or Stoops? I'm not defending SD. just curious how yall come to the conclusion that all that was caused by SD. Stoops sounds like a big puss to me, in addition to SD being a problem.