Hal Mumme gave one of the worst jobs in football to a booster's kid, with no pay for six months and a list of duties that ran from driving the van to cutting video to doing the laundry. That kid was Shannon Dawson, and he is now the offensive coordinator of a unit that leads the country in total offense heading into Saturday night's game at Clemson.
Shannon Dawson's story
Miami is 4-0 and the Hurricanes are averaging 588.8 yards a game, more than any team in FBS. Saturday now offers the biggest test of the 2026 season with Miami heading into Death Valley against a Clemson defense that has been much better since the opener at LSU.
Clinton to Mississippi College
Dawson grew up in Clinton, Louisiana, a small town where not many people leave, and he played quarterback in high school and a broken ankle changed his trajectory. He decided he would become an orthopedic surgeon and signed with Mississippi College, a Division III school, as a biology major. At his first practice he took his first snap out of the shotgun, and the young coach running the quarterbacks was Dana Holgorsen.
He spent his freshman year in the coaching booth, calling defensive looks down to Holgorsen on the sideline, and that was part of what went into him deciding to become a football coach. When Holgorsen took a job at Wingate in North Carolina, Dawson followed him, driving 14 hours in a white Toyota pickup and seeing the campus for the first time when he arrived. Holgorsen left after a year, but Dawson stayed, moved to receiver, and then coached Wingate's receivers.
Southeastern Louisiana
In 2002, Mumme took over at Southeastern Louisiana, which was bringing football back after 17 seasons. Holgorsen called and told Mumme to hire Dawson, and Mumme wrote the name on a Post-it note that got lost on his desk. A Southeastern booster then showed up asking Mumme to hire his son, and Mumme agreed to the meeting mostly to get the booster out of the office. The kid was Dawson.
Southeastern's first game back drew 9,708 fans, and Dawson's job that night was to chart the play calls. Late in the fourth quarter, Southeastern trailed Arkansas-Monticello 17-16 and recovered a botched punt snap at the 22.
Dawson suggested a play called Fox, which was a fake screen designed for a deep pass. Mumme called it and QB Martin Hankins hit Choni Francis for a touchdown, and the win.
Dawson continues to find work
In 2005 he followed Mumme to New Mexico State, and the Aggies went 0-12. The next year Mumme recommended him to Millsaps, a Division III school in Jackson, Mississippi, for a job calling plays. Millsaps went 7-4 and made the Division III playoffs for the first time since 1975.
He then took over the offense at Stephen F. Austin, which had just gone 0-11. In his second season the Lumberjacks led the nation in passing and went 10-3, and his quarterback there, Jeremy Moses, finished with more completions than anyone in FCS history.
Holgorsen then brought him to West Virginia in 2011, where Dawson coached Tavon Austin and Stedman Bailey, both of whom became All-Americans.
Dawson's one-year stop and the return to Holgorsen
Kentucky then hired Dawson to be the offensive coordinator for the 2015 season. The Wildcats went 5-7, and he was let go after just one year.
After three seasons running the offense at Southern Miss, he took a job coaching tight ends at Houston, back under Holgorsen. A year later he was coaching quarterbacks again, and in 2021 Houston went 12-2.
Dawson's tenure at Miami
Mario Cristobal hired Dawson at Miami in 2023. The next year, Cam Ward broke Bernie Kosar's school records for passing yards and completions, and last season Miami made a run in the CFP.
From a nobody at the bottom of the totem pole, Dawson has worked his way up and now is one of the best offensive coordinators in the country.
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