OC Shannon Dawson moves to the sideline

Shannon Dawson’s title was changed for this season, adding offensive coordinator to his responsibilities along with the receivers. He was the inside receivers coach a year ago.

Asked if that will change his role dramatically – as in, will he call more plays? - Dawson said, in short, no.

He said the biggest change is that he will no longer be in the booth, but move down to the sideline where he can meet directly with receivers as they come off the field to make in-game adjustments.

I highlight that, because we heard Dana Holgorsen speak about it many times this week.

“It’s the same. The only difference is instead of communication from the box to the field, I’ll be standing right beside him,” said Dawson. “Really the thing that changes is the communication between skill guys in between drives. Whenever we’re off the field, it doesn’t stop for (Holgorsen). He’s got special teams to watch over, defense, flow of the game type stuff.

“And so last year when the receivers went to the bench Coach Gillespie was there with the running backs. I would talk to Coach Gillespie and he would talk to the receivers at times, but there was no direct adjustments going on with the receivers. I would get on headsets individually with them.

"But the biggest change will be that. I’ll have the whole group. I’ll be able to stand in front of them answer questions and make adjustments. Which in my opinion is going to be a significant difference.”

Dawson said QB Coach Jake Spavital will be up in the booth, along with grad assistant Vince Cashdollar.

Holgorsen mentioned the importance of making and communicating in-game adjustemnts multiple times this week, when asked about preparing for Marshall's offense.

"Nobody knows going into the first game. You can assume all you want to, but the bigger thing for game one is in-game adjustments, which I’m confident our coaches are going to be very aware of and alert to what is going on on the field, to the point where they can see what’s going on and then talk about how we need to attack it either offensively or defensively and get it communicated to our players so they can adjust what they’re doing," he said.