What Was Said: Georgia offensive coordinator Mike Bobo

ATHENS, Ga. — Thursday presented the first opportunity for media to speak with Mike Bobo since his return to Georgia prior to the 2022 season. Serving in an analyst’s role last year before being promoted to the seat he once held – offensive coordinator – Bobo says he’s learned a lot since last spending time in Athens. With a bit of a new look offense and plenty of new perspective, here’s what Bobo had to say on Thursday.

Mike Bobo on why the time was right now to be Georgia’s offensive coordinator…

“First of all, there wasn’t really an official opportunity to come back here three years ago. Made a decision to go to South Carolina with Coach Muschamp and unfortunately that didn’t work out. After Auburn, had other 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 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.  It was a learning curve and those guys took me in. It was very, very positive. With Coach Monken going to the NFL, the opportunity presented itself to be coordinator. I felt comfortable about being here. 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 how to do things. To be part of this program that I played at, went to school, graduated from the University of Georgia, I couldn’t pass that opportunity up.

But I didn’t come here two years ago to be the offensive coordinator. I came here to learn and continue my growth as a coach. It just happened to work out that way.” 

Bobo on the 26 alumni working for Georgia… 

“I think it’s 26 alumni working in the football department. When you’re recruiting a young man, there is never going to be 100 percent stability. They’re looking for stability. You know the old saying, don’t go for the coach. Go for the school and where you fit in. At the same time, recruits are going to be attracted to certain coaches. And I think that’s a selling point. You’ve got coaches on this staff that love the University of Georgia. That are here to help the University of Georgia be the best that it can be in all areas, not just on the field. And it’s important, to guys that graduated from here that it is successful in all areas. I think that is a selling point to the recruits.” 

Bobo on how tough it is to be an assistant after previously having been a head coach…

“The question is how tough is it to run your own program, when you come back and you’re not running it, I really think it’s a little bit easier. You’ve sat in that chair as a head coach and you know everything that head coach is dealing with. Not just with aspects of dealing with practice and games, there is so much that comes across a head coach’s desk. Before, you wondered why the head coach might do something or why we aren’t doing this. You don’t know what all a head coach has to balance. It makes you a better assistant. Knowing when to voice your opinion, or you could walk in there and say something private. Or the head coach can ask you a question and you say, “we might have done it this way.” 

And then you know how to be a good soldier. Because you’ve been in that chair and you know what your responsibility is. Your No. 1 responsibility is to be loyal to the head coach.” 

Mike Bobo on what he’s seen from the quarterbacks…

“We’re basically finishing up our last day of install today. And then tomorrow will be a review and then we’ll have the scrimmage. I’ve been pleased with all the quarterbacks. We’ve been focusing on the process and each install and what we can control in that moment. Those guys have done a great job. There have been ups and downs but they’ve been focused. They come into every meeting ready to go, prepared before the meeting. 

Saturday is a scrimmage. It’s the closest thing we can get to a game. How are you going those situations when you’re out there with the team by yourself. There is no coaches on the field. The bottom line for a quarterback, it’s can we execute. Are we going to be able to execute and get us in the right play, get us in the right protection, run the offense, handle third down situations, red zone situations, and that’s what we’re looking for. Handling those situations in a game and having continuity on offense.”

Bobo on if he’s bringing a new edge to the position considering last two coordinator stops weren’t successful…

“I think I have the same edge that I’ve always had. For whatever reason, those things didn’t work out, and when they don’t work out you have to look yourself in the mirror, you don’t point fingers or make excuses, and you come here with a mindset of doing everything possible to help make us successful at the University of Georgia. That’s my edge as an offensive coach. It’s not, ‘Okay, this didn’t work last time in this situation. I’ve got to prove myself this time.’ 

I always tell the players, there are going to be moments that we have failures and you keep getting yourself back up on your feet because what’s on the other side of failure is success. We know this job has pressure. There’s pressure that comes with this job. I’ve sat in this chair and I understand those pressures. I think I’m older and have more experience now to handle those pressures and focus on our football team, especially our offense – what I’m in charge of – to get them ready to practice on a daily basis and play on Saturdays.”

Bobo on how much the offense would have changed regardless of who was at coordinator considering loss of Stetson Bennett, Darnell Washington, etc…

“Each year you try to figure out your identity as an offense. Whether I was sitting there at coordinator or Coach Monken came back, you have to figure out what pieces of the puzzle fit to what things that we did well last year and figure out what changed. Darnell was such a big impact for us, not necessarily just blocking in-line but also being able to block on the perimeter, Stetson’s ability to move – we’ve got to figure out the pieces that fit best for us offensively and that’s part of what fall camp is about. 

Day one in the first meeting we talk about competition to our players and building depth, but it’s not competition necessarily going against the defense, it’s competition between position groups. There’s competition between the tight ends and the receivers. Are our tight ends going to step up and we’re still going to be a lot of 12 or are we going to have to be more 11? Those are the things that you’re figuring out through camp, and at the end of the day, you have to put the best guys on the field to give you the best chance to be successful, and then we want to build depth. 

If there’s multiple people that can do multiple things that increases our volume as an offense with more things that we can do. So we’re still trying to figure that out at practice. We’ve got a good feel for it right now, but we’ve still got to go play on Saturday in a scrimmage and fine tune things the next 8-9 days until the second scrimmage is over.”

Mike Bobo on if he can notice the difference in Georgia’s overall talent since he was last here…

“The number one thing is that they’ve done a great job of recruiting around here. There’s always been good players at the University of Georgia, but I think Coach has done a great job of building depth at all the positions: ones, twos, threes, and the way we practice, the way we go about developing guys with two-spot things, guys are constantly working on their craft. Whether you’re a fourth stringer today or a first stringer, you’re getting reps like the first string guys. So guys can develop, and I think that helps with them being able to play faster when their opportunity comes via injury or guys graduating or whatever, they’re able to step up and play at a successful level with a chance to compete. That would be the number one thing for me, the depth that is here now and the development. Coach Smart does a great job of having a plan to develop these guys. There’s never a meeting that goes by that development isn’t stressed by our head coach. You’re not just coaching the first teamer or second teamer, you’re coaching everybody out there.”

Bobo on coaching Brock Bowers…

“As a play caller, it’s about players and not plays. That’s your number one job as a play caller. If a guy’s got a unique ability to make plays and plays that turn into explosives, we’ve got to do a good job as a staff of finding plays and designing plays that get him touches.

As far as getting the best out of Brock Bowers, you’re going to get the best out of Brock Bowers every single day. He is not a guy that needs to be motivated. He is locked in in every meeting, every walk through. I had the good fortune of being able to sit in the tight end room last year and be able to see how he’s a guy that when Coach Hartley would mention it one time, he got it. He did not need a lot of reps. He’s extremely smart, and he’s very humble. He reminds me a lot of a guy like Nick Chubb when I was here before that just went and worked every single day. He tried to get better no matter what he had done the day before, the game before, the year before. He was constantly trying to improve his craft. He’s a joy to coach, and I’m glad he’s a Georgia Bulldog.”

Bobo on his mindset as an analyst in 2022…

“Well I kind of mentioned it earlier, I think Seth asked the question. When I came back to the University of Georgia in an off-the-field role, as an analyst. As an analyst your number one job is to help the coaches. I wanted to help Coach Monken and that staff anyway that I could and also learn. You’re coming in and you’re trying to learn how Coach Smart set his practice schedule, how he ran the off season, all those things, but also how Coach Monken was running his offense. So you’re learning and then I’ve sat in the chair (offensive coordinator) before too. At first you don’t want a guy that’s got a bunch of ideas. 

“You want a guy who when you give him a task, he’s going to get it done. Whatever my task was, i wanted to try to do it to the best of my ability and let him know that he could count on me. Then as the season went on, that trust continued to build between Coach Monken and I. He felt more comfortable asking me some questions about what I thought. At the end of the day, I’ve sat in that chair and if he didn’t like my idea, I didn’t get my feelings hurt. I think that’s what you’ve got to do as a good staff member. You’re going to present ideas, we all present ideas, and at the end of the day, the coordinator has got to pick which ideas he wants to put on that call sheet. If he didn’t use my idea, so be it. If he does, great. At the end of the day, I’m going to help those coaches coach those ideas to the players. So just trying to be a sponge in there and help in any way that he asks, no matter whatever it was.”

Mike Bobo on what he has added to his toolbox from working with Todd Monken…

“They all have a body of plays and they’re all pretty similar when you look at different offenses. Some might focus more on balance, pro-style like use. Some might be more spread. We have elements of all that and I’d like t’d like to think that I’ve had elements of all that in my offenses in the past. I would think the No. 1 thing is more movement, more shifts and motions really to disguise formations and get guys in matchups that are beneficial to our offenses. He really did an outstanding job of that.”

Bobo on the process of keeping the offense in place but putting his own spin on it…

“The main thing that didn’t change was the terminology. You want to keep the terminology the same for the players. There’ll be little nuances that change of how we do things and a lot of what’s our identity going to be offensively. You might see some changes if our identity changes of who we are offensively. We don’t have a guy that can possibly extend plays as well. We have two of those guys who can but Stetson had elite quickness and the ability to get yourself out of trouble. We don’t have a 6-7 280-pound tight end so I think you’ll see some different things there and I think it would have been a little bit different anyway no matter who is standing up here.”

Bobo on learning from Monken from a process standpoint…

“I would say during the game week, I’ve usually sat as a whole staff and watched things and had ideas. It was broken off. Each guy had a responsibility presented to staff. He allowed ownership within the staff. 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.”

Mike Bobo on bringing in Darrell Dickey and Brandon Streeter…

“First of all, I’m excited that we got Darrell Dickey and Brandon Streeter, two guys that are experienced coordinators. Coach Streeter, obviously, at Clemson. Coach Dickey has been everywhere so those are guys that, as a coach, you can bounce things off, ideas that you might have. How have you done it this way? What have you done? Is it a little bit different? Is it the same? Then their roles will increase as the season once the season gets closer of having areas and presenting to the staff. Some weeks it might be a multitude of things. Some weeks it might be one play that helps us get a first down or a conversion on third down or score in the red zone. Nobody has all the answers. I’ve never had all the answers. I think if Coach Monken was sitting up here, he would say he doesn’t have all the answers. If you are in that staff room, you’re looking for ideas. you’re looking for fresh ideas, maybe a spin on the way that you’ve done something in the past that will give you advantage. Something that the defense might not be able to recognize. So it’s all about ideas and putting ourselves in a position where we can be successful on offense.”