Ask the Expert: Nick Mullens running Shannon Dawson's offense
How will star USM quarterback Nick Mullens fare running Shannon Dawson's offense?
We enlisted the help of Southern Miss expert and insider Lanny Mixon of BigGoldNation.com and here's the first installment of our talk.
Cats Illustrated: Nick Mullens obviously had a huge season last year. How has he seemed to fare in Shannon Dawson's offense through the spring and fall camp?
Lanny Mixon, BigGoldNation.com: It looks to me like the transition has been pretty seamless. Both Todd Monken (USM's offensive coordinator in 2015) and Dawson come from that (Dana) Holgorson coaching tree so their basic philosophies and tendencies are really similar. The number I heard, I think, is there's about 85-percent similarity as far as what they do on offense.
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Mullens is such a smart guy. The coaching staff said from day one that they were not going to go in and change everything. They said they were going to play to Mullens' strengths from day one. They weren't trying to implement any changes away from what Mullens does well. When you look at that and you hear Mullens talk, he's a smart kid. He's a team guy. I think the buy-in from Mullens and really the entire team has been good.
Cats Illustrated: Can you pinpoint any differences from Monken to Dawson that you think will produce a new look in any respects?
Mixon: The number one thing, I think, is the tight ends are going to play a much bigger role. I'm not so sure that's schematically a change or a philosophy change. I think Monken wanted to try to implement the tight ends into his offense when he got there. He just didn't have many tight ends. Basically they were hurt all year long. If you don't have two healthy tight ends all the time you can't have tight end sets. Now they're four or five deep with tight ends they feel pretty good about so I would expect that to be utilized.
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Cats Illustrated: Southern Miss lost a lot of production at receiver last year. Especially through fall camp, who has stepped up and what's the forecast at that position?
Mixon: D.J. Thompson is one of the big receivers coming back. He had 55 catches and 779 yards (in 2015), which was third on the team last year in catches and yards. But in the grand scheme that was the 12th most receiving yards any Southern Miss receiver had in the history of the program. That tells you how prolific the offense was last year.
D.J. is absolutely a guy who can produce. He's 6'3, well over 200 pounds. He's a big-bodied kid and can go up for the ball. Like some big receivers he knows how to use that big body to create separation. He should have a really solid year.
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There are a couple of wild cards for me. They've got a couple of guys from East Mississippi Community College.
Allenzae Staggers was the number one receiver in the state of Mississippi as a high school senior. He had to go to JUCO because of academics, but they've got him, and then they have another transfer from East Mississippi in Isaiah Jones, who played in either five or seven games - something like that - as a true freshman for Florida State two years ago. He bounced and spent a year back at East Mississippi and he's at Southern Miss now. He's a guy who has all the potential in the world as a big guy who's 6'4, 210 pounds. He runs well. He's kind of a wild card. His numbers weren't all that impressive at East Mississippi but I don't think those numbers are any indication of the kind of player he can be.
I would also expect Southern Miss to continue to utilize the running back in the pass game. Ito Smith had over 500 yards receiving last year and he's going to be a guy who they expect to do that.