Mike Bobo came back to learn at Georgia before returning to familiar role

ATHENS, Ga. — Familiar game-day digs await Mike Bobo on September 2. The former Georgia quarterback, quarterbacks coach, and offensive coordinator will take an elevator to the 200-level of Sanford Stadium when the Bulldogs take on UT-Martin to open the season. He’ll make a left-hand turn, walk through some double doors, across the press box lounge area, and into a coaches booth where he spent a ton of time during his first stint as a coach at his alma mater.

Bobo is back in the offensive coordinator saddle at UGA after being tapped by Kirby Smart to replace Todd Monken back in February. But when Smart made that call, all Bobo had to do was move his office form one area of Georgia’s football facility to another. He was with the program last year as an offensive analyst.

His second stint as a coach at Georgia began after two stops in the SEC as offensive coordinator. Bobo was at South Carolina in 2020 where he worked with current UGA co-defensive coordinator Will Muschamp. When the latter was fired the former stepped in as the interim. Then Bobo moved on to Auburn where he was let go in December of 2021.

With his son, Drew, already signed to play at Georgia and some buyout cash headed his way, Bobo returned to the place where, as he said on Thursday when he met with the UGA beat, he met his wife and his children were born — The Classic City. He took Smart, a former teammate and long-time friend, up on his offer to become an analyst so he could be a “sponge” and improve as a coach.

“After Auburn, had other opportunities to go other places but I wanted to go somewhere where I could continue learning as a coach,” Bobo said on Thursday. “I always wanted to be under the coach Smart, coach Saban tree and learn how they practice, how they organize, how they go about things. I tell recruits, you go somewhere you want to be developed and I came here last year to try to get developed more as a coach.”

With some familiar faces like Muschamp, Bryan McClendon, Todd Hartley, and Stacey Searels already part of the program, Bobo fit right in. He was welcomed with open arms. Monken joked back in December that Smart asked him about adding Bobo but Monken knew his opinion didn’t matter much. Smart was going to bring Bobo back come hell or high water according to the veteran offensive coordinator and Monken was glad that he did.

The Monken, Bobo mesh…

Time will tell whether or not Smart has gotten it right in promoting Bobo to the offensive coordinator role but putting him with Monken was a masterstroke. The two veterans in their field got along extremely well and in their limited opportunities to speak on it, have praised each other.

It started with Bobo doing whatever he could to help out. Having been an offensive coordinator and head coach before, he knew that Monken didn’t need someone firing ideas and drawn-up plays at him. Bobo was familiar with the first stage of serving a coaching staff as an analyst — building trust.

Instead of lunging at every opportunity to show Monken what he knew, Bobo did what was asked of him. Monken told reporters in December that Bobo showed a lack of ego and did things that a graduate assistant would do, like draw up play cards. Bobo knew Monken needed somebody that would get the mundane things done, so he did them himself.

A comfort level was established in short order. Monken began to ask Bobo for ideas and Bobo obliged. Some were used and some weren’t but Bobo didn’t get his feelings hurt. Again, having done the job before, he understood that coordinators can’t use any and all ideas. Eventually Bobo was put in charge of red zone breakdown and presented to the staff each week.

When Monken was eventually nominated for the Broyles Award, an honor that goes annually to the nation’s top assistant coach, and became a finalist, he tossed Bobo an ‘attaboy’ in his speech at the ceremony. He credited Bobo with one of the plays the Bulldogs used to score against LSU in the SEC Championship game.

Then, when Monken was on his way out the door after being hired by the Baltimore Ravens, he shouted Bobo out once more. This time he told Smart that if it were him making the call on who to hire as offensive play caller, he’d make the same choice that Smart eventually did.

The here and now…

It’s Bobo’s show now but Monken’s presence will still be felt. Bobo told reporters on Thursday that the terminology won’t change. In fact, most of the offense itself, its core objectives and philosophies, will also remain in tact.

There will be differences to be sure. How could there not be? The Bulldogs are changing quarterbacks and that alone is going to alter things. Stetson Bennett was an escape artist who was incredibly tough to sack and even tougher to corral when the game was on the line. He mastered Monken’s offense over the course of three years.

Georgia also lost Kenny McIntosh, who had the most productive receiving season for any running back in UGA history in 2022. Also, as Bobo pointed out, there’s no more Darnell Washington — a 6-foot-7 tight end who played at 280 pounds last year and gave Georgia offense a highly unique element.

The Bulldogs’ new/old offensive coordinator will also put his own spin on things. Some of those ideas Monken didn’t use last season might work their way into the game plan in 2022. But the coach who came back home to learn plans to put the 2022 experience to good use.

“He allowed ownership within the staff,” Bobo said when asked what he learned from Monken’s process. “I had an area, coach (Todd) Hartley has an area, coach (Bryan) McClendon has an area, coach (Dell) McGee has an area and those guys took ownership of that. Again, he doesn’t use every idea that somebody presents but he gave the staff in that room ownership of the game plan. I thought that was unique and then again the shifting and motion of getting in some plays and advantages of those guys not being able to attack certain formations.”