Mike Bobo explains what led him to Georgia

Georgia doesn’t currently have to make too much of a pitch for hires at the moment considering they’re currently the premier program in college football. However, when making his next decision on a job in January of 2022, Mike Bobo said that UGA offered him opportunities beyond winning at the highest level.

Bobo explained his return to Athens and offseason promotion of offensive coordinator during a press conference on Thursday. The top box that he wanted checked with his next job after being fired as Auburn’s OC in late 2021 was somewhere where he could grow and develop himself as a coach overall. In the end, Kirby Smart, considering his own lineage, and the ‘Dawgs providing him with that exactly.

“First of all, there wasn’t an official opportunity to come back here three years ago. I made a decision to go to South Carolina with Coach Muschamp and, unfortunately, that didn’t work out,” Bobo explained. “This time, after Auburn, I had opportunities to go other places. But I wanted to go somewhere where I could continue learning as a coach.”

“I always wanted to be under Coach Smart, or the Coach Saban tree, and learn how they practice. How they organize, how they went about things. And I even tell recruits that you want to go somewhere where you’re developed,” said Bobo. “I came here last year to try and get developed more as a coach.”

Athens has been a home for Bobo for the last three decades. It started when he was a great quarterback for the program in the mid-90s before he then spent time on and off from 1998 until 2014 as part of their staff. Then, after a head coaching stint at Colorado State and a pair of coordinator jobs in the SEC, he chose to return to UGA as an offensive analyst under Todd Monken.

With Monken heading to Baltimore this offseason, Bobo came across the opportunity to fully put on the headset again. He was fine with doing so too considering he feels he’s at a place where he can put his roots down in familiar territory,

“It was really a learning curve. Those guys took me in and it was very, very positive. With Coach Monken going to the NFL, the opportunity presented itself to be coordinator. I felt comfortable by being here,” said Bobo. “Athens is a great place. I met my wife here, my kids were born here. You’re at a place working for an administration that believes in what we’re doing, our head coach has a plan of how to do things.”

Taking over as Georgia’s offensive coordinator wasn’t Bobo’s plan for his latest return to the program. Still, with the gig available to him, it was one that he knew he couldn’t turn down.

“To be a part of this program that I played at, went to school, and graduated from the University of Georgia? I couldn’t pass that opportunity up,” Bobo said. “But I didn’t come here last year to be offensive coordinator. I came to learn and continue my growth as a coach. It just happened to work out that way.”