Mike Bobo shares thanks at Broyles Award ceremony

Georgia offensive coordinator Mike Bobo was up for the Broyles Award on Tuesday. While he didn’t win the honor that goes to the nation’s top assistant (that went to Iowa defensive coordinator Phil Parker), the fact that Bobo in his first year back in charge of the Bulldog offense says a lot about what he was able to accomplish in a short amount of time.

In 13 games, Georgia totaled 6,278 yards of offense – fourth most in the country – while averaging 482.9 yards per game. That came by way of a passing attack that averaged the tenth most yards per game in the country (second in the SEC) and a run game that grew as the season went along.

Of course, the job of an offensive coordinator is to score points, and that’s just what the Bulldogs did. They finished ninth in the country in points per game with 38.4 with 30 or more in all but three games.

Bobo, who had an opportunity to speak to the crowd on hand in Little Rock, Arkansas, shared a short speech where he thanked the coaches on his staff, the opportunity he got at Georgia and the players that made the success possible. Here’s everything he said on Tuesday at the Broyles Award ceremony.

“That’s what I really look like now, that old guy right there [Bobo points to a graphic on the wall]. That video of me fist-pumping in the booth, that was about 13 years ago. Remember how skinny I was back then, dear? 

I’m truly honored to be here at the Broyles Foundation. I can’t say enough about the hospitality that’s been shown to me and my wife. Betsy, Molly, David, Jim, it’s been outstanding, and to be here with these coaches, these finalists. I said last night — we do have one defensive coach down there [Iowa’s Phil Parker]. Most of us are offensive guys. But I said last night a lot of times coaches, we steal and we copy. A lot of that’s done in the offseason, but with technology now every week I’m having a young GA or a quality control guy go find me some new screen Coach Stein’s doing at Oregon or some new way Coach Moore’s running the ball in short yardage at Michigan. Everything LSU’s been doing all year seems to be working. But just great coaches and truly honored to be here today for the luncheon.

First, I want to recognize the head coach of my family, and that’s my wife, Lainie. I met her at the University of Georgia. She’s allowed me to follow my dream, and that’s coach. And she has done an outstanding job as a mother. She’s raised five beautiful kids. My oldest plays football at the University of Georgia, an offensive lineman. We have triplets, two girls and a son, and then my youngest daughter’s 16. We sacrifice a lot, and I can’t say enough about what you do, Lainie, for the family. I just really appreciate that.

I wanted to say a little bit, tell your story. My story, I’ve been blessed my whole life. I always wanted to be involved with football. I grew up around football coaches. My dad was a high school assistant football coach. And everyday when I got out of elementary school and middle school I was running to that field house. I wanted to be a part of that football team, that football program, that community and it just grew. My dream wasn’t really to play college football, it wasn’t to play in the NFL. It was to be a part of that community, that football team. I saw that impact my father and other coaches had on young men. Not just me, but young men in that community. some of them went on to play in the NFL, some went on to win national championships and some went on to be good husbands, good fathers. And that’s what I wanted to do. I wanted to have a chance to come back and coach high school ball. 

Fortunately, I played at the University of Georgia and had the opportunity to get into college coaching. I can’t say enough about my college coaches, Ray Goff and Jim Donnan. Jim Donnan, who is still around in Athens, Ga., who is still a very close friend of mine to me, my family, encouraged me to get into coaching and have that opportunity. I wasn’t good enough to play in the NFL, so start coaching right after my career at the University of Georgia. Got my foot in the door and then coached there for a couple of years and then come back in and for 14 seasons for my first stint at the University of Georgia to be able to coach with a guy by the name of Mark Richt. I was a young coach and really probably didn’t deserve to be a coach in the SEC and allowed me to grow as a position coach and an offensive coordinator. Had success and had failures but was always there for me and encouraged me to keep me going. And that’s what I’ve tried to do in my profession. 

We’ve had a great year. I want to say a lot of that is because of our head coach Kirby Smart. I played with Coach Smart. We grew up together in South Georgia. Both our dads were high school coaches. And then to come back and have an opportunity to be there at the University of Georgia with him and under his leadership and the direction he sets every day, it’s been a blessing for me and my family. 

When you take a job as an offensive coordinator, Mark [May] talked about the backbone of a head coach is his assistants and the backbone of any coordinator, these guys would tell you, is your staff. We have an unbelievable staff. Every day, I love to go in that room and work with those guys and figure out what we’re going to do, how we’re going to do it, how we’re going to present it. I can’t say enough about Stacy Searels, Dell McGee, Todd Hartley, Bryan McClendon. I coached with some of those guys, I coached some of those guys and we have an unbelievable room. And it’s not just those coaches. College staffs now are a lot bigger. We have Brandon Streeter, Darrell Dickey, analysts that help, Montgomery VanGorder is my quarterback analyst coach and his dad won this award I think in 2002, Brian VanGorder, and he [Montgomery] is there on our staff. It’s just an unbelievable group of men that come in and work every day and make it possible to do what we we do.

And then I think every guy would tell you, it’s about the players. We get into this profession to help players, and I can’t say enough about the group of players at the University of Georgia, the expectations that these kids have on them coming off of back to back National Championship seasons to perform. They poured it all in, and we came up a little bit short, but I love those guys and how they perform. I can’t say enough about the character of that football team, especially on offense. Week in and week out, they laid it on the line for the University of Georgia, and I love you guys. Go Dawgs!”