Todd Monken Press Conference Prior to 2022 Season

Georgia offensive coordinator Todd Monken met with the media on Thursday. Here's everything he had to say.

Georgia offensive coordinator Todd Monken met with the media on Thursday. Here's everything he had to say. 

Todd Monken

On how Stetson Bennett has capitalized on being a starter …

“Being with the first group, being expected to be the starter, it’s invaluable. His confidence level is raised with our confidence in him. I think that is probably the most important thing.”

On using four tight ends in a single formation …

“Well, if you run it too often, you get every wideout in the portal (laughing). We do have great players at that position. You do have to utilize their skillset, but you also have to balance that because there is a cost to that. It is one thing to say we are going to utilize three-team personnel, four-team personnel, then it is like ‘ok, what are we going to do out of it to execute?’ That is probably the toughest thing is how do you get through practice and execute how you want it to look once you get to the game. That happens a lot in offense and defense meetings, where a defensive coach will say ‘boy, that really gives us problems.’ It only gives you problems if we can execute. If it gives us problems as well, it is really not worth anything. We do have good players there. We do have to find a good way to get them on the field and use all of our talented players.”

On his relationship with Stetson Bennett …

“He has always been in there, so he has always heard how we want to do it. I think he is doing a much better job of in between his reps of carrying the message that we talk about and to make sure we are on the same page. I think that is the biggest thing. It is not him talking to receivers in terms of how we would do it. It is that we are all on the same page, carrying the message from our meeting room to on the field. That’s a sign of leadership — going over ‘how did you see it?’ ‘well, this is how I saw it, this is how we talk about, let’s get it right.’

On talk that the offense might carry the team and if that is something he agrees with …

“I really don’t know what that means. In fact, we’ve got good players on defense. Sure we lost a lot of really good players. I don’t think that changes for us. I don’t think last year we thought of it that way other than all we control is how often we get the ball and how many times we score when we have the ball — points per possession. That is all we control. Obviously, last year there were scenarios where it made no sense to continue to put ourselves at risk. That may not be the case this year, that may be the case this year. I don’t know. That is to be determined, but to carry that, that is ridiculous at a place like Georgia. We have good players on both sides of the ball. Just like last year, to say that the defense had to carry us is probably unfair.

“But, we were tremendous and defense. I get what you are saying. I don’t mean to be rude. I am just saying in general I think we get carried away with overall points and overall statistics or carrying things over. Ultimately, each game is where you have to continue to score points and stop people. If you get into averages, it’s not any good if we score 51, you get 25 the next. You would like to be more consistent right there in the middle every week that you can count on that. Just like whatever happened last year has nothing to do with this year.”

On the wide receiver group …

“Well, we lost George (Pickens) last year. Maybe in some ways that made us better, you know. In some ways once George went down we had to figure ‘ok, we don’t have an x, we don’t have someone you can ok, just go three by one and they kick their coverage and we can throw it there,” So, you have to get into more tightened sets, condensed sets. How are we going to run the ball better? How are we going to use our tight ends? Not knowing exactly at the time what we had in Brock Bowers or A.D. Mitchell or whoever. At the end of the day, you figuring out the puzzle is probably the No. 1 thing we are paid to do is, and no one really cares who you have. We do have more options at receiver probably at some spots, but at the end of the day whether it is using our backs, using our tight ends, using our receivers — it is what you are paid to do. Figure out a way to score and not turn it over.”

On Arian Smith…

“I think the biggest thing is staying healthy for Arian. He just hasn’t been on the field long enough as a developmental player. He is fast. He is athletic. He is a great kid. But not being healthy and being out there to develop… What that does, is that restricts you from a player being an every-down player to get on the field more often because you can’t trust them and everything you’re asking them to do, so they have to be situational players, if that makes sense. You have situational players and everyday players. There is more that goes into it because say hey, let’s go fast. Players have to know what to do. So, we are looking to bridge that gap from being a situational player to a player that we can trust to be out there in more than just when you want to use explosiveness to threaten the defense. Plus, they complement the run game. Put him out there and it’s like are they going to play a two-shell, are they going to play an extra safety that allows you to run the ball more effectively if they don’t want to put more guys in the box and allow him more space.”

On the running backs’ pass-catching abilities…

“Kenny (McIntosh) is going to have to take more of that slack. It was nice having both of those guys (James Cook) a year ago with their versatility. I think our other guys have improved dramatically in terms of their ball skills and route running ability, getting the ball to them down the field, and their ability to track the ball. That’s probably as much… James could really track the ball. You could put him out there and feel good if we threw it 40-yards downfield. That’s completely different than most of the balls that running backs catch, which are right in front of them. Intermediate. Short. So Kenny, Daijun (Edwards) has really improved. That is an area where we don’t have as much depth. When you had James you didn’t have to worry about in a given game plan if one guy went down that would be Kenny. Now the other guys have gotten better at it, but you have a short margin of error. You’d hate to go into a game with all kinds of things you like for Kenny, and then all of a sudden something happens and you’re stuck. When Kenny was healthy we had the luxury of having both of them.”

On melding his offensive philosophy with Georgia’s traditional style…

“Actually it’s not really a rhetorical question. It’s fair in the fact that I do like to throw it. I think people think that I don’t like to throw it. I’m paid to score, I’m not paid to win. I’m paid to add as part of that, but to score. But I’m also paid to be responsible for winning. Again there is a big part of that where they think that Kirby (Smart) dictates what we do on offense. No, he dictates that we play smart. That we be explosive and we utilize our personnel. Do everything in our power to win games for the University of Georgia. That’s what we should do. Believe me, when I’m thinking game plan-wise, I’m thinking about how we can be explosive yet how we can run the ball to help us be explosive. You can’t control the game if you can’t run the ball comfortably. You can't. You cannot control the game. You can have a bunch of statistics that make it look better and make you feel better, but if you can’t run the ball comfortably you can’t win the game. That comes from a guy that likes to throw it. My background is wideouts and quarterbacks, so I do want to throw it. I enjoy throwing it. Two years ago, against Mississippi State here couldn’t run it. We didn’t run it well at all. That was on me. We threw for 400-yards, thank God, and won the game. Cincinnati we turned the ball over a bunch and didn’t run the ball nearly as well, but luckily we could throw it. I think the biggest thing is are you able to, when you’re not having success at one or the other, you’re not just one-dimensional. You’re not just a run team, where we get behind and have trouble throwing it, or a passing team when you have to run it. But it’s out there, it’s part of it. You have to do whatever you need to do to win the game. To be explosive and not turn it over.”

On the addition of Mike Bobo to the staff…

“Well first of all he is an unbelievable sounding board, like any other experienced coach that we bring in. Whether it was last year, defensively with Will Muschamp or with us Buster Faulkner. Anybody you bring in is a sounding board. You ask them, are we doing everything in our power to be successful? During walk-throughs, I asked him today… We’re working on pressures and how we are going to adjust to them. I walked right over to him and said okay, what are we missing? Is there anything that you guys did that was different? Is there any way of how you walked through in the past? Are we utilizing every opportunity to be successful? He’s been great, just like with Buster or anybody that has done it as long as he’s done it. In some ways, I’m sure he’s enjoying being back here, but there are other ways where it’s like maybe I wouldn’t do it that way. But he’s been awesome. He’s been awesome as a sounding board and I want to continue that in what we do offensively. We had a little bit of a shorter off-season with guys coming in, so we haven’t had as much time to really dive into certain aspects of it. Everybody that you have in your organization has to have value. Well, where is their value? Where is their unique value? Is it recruiting, player development, or offensive game planning? Whatever that is, if they don’t have an elite trait that adds to it, they have to go. Somewhere in that, they have to have some reason why they are in our building. I don’t mean to end on that with Coach Bobo. He adds tremendous value in terms of being a sounding board for us.”

On Dominick Blaylock’s journey back to the field…

“I can't imagine getting hurt and getting reinjured two years… Probably a lot of times question whether or not what if I do all of this again. What if I do all of this and it happens again? I’m sure every day, anybody that has ever played basketball and you roll your ankle, you don’t jump for a month. Imagine tearing your ACL and then you do it again. How long is that going to take to recover on the mental side, forget the physical side, and just being able to get out there and go. Over time he has. Gotten to the point where he feels more and more comfortable. He’s always been a crafty route runner. He’s probably more crafty than he is fast. He has a knack. Some guys just have a knack for getting open and making plays and contested catches and you can see that every day that he is out there.”

On freshman running backs Andrew Paul and Branson Robinson…

"They're going to be really good players. What's interesting is whenever this started, 10-15 years ago, when players came at mid-semester; at one point there were four to five of them and you had 18 or 20 that didn't come. Now it's the reverse of that. You have most of your class coming in at mid-semester. You are so used to freshman being up to speed a little bit more. But missing the Spring takes a toll on any player that was not here because you're asking a lot of them. They're both going to be tremendous players. They're working awfully hard at their craft, and every day we install. Summer is not the same. It's really not because you have the physical part. Every day, we install, and the defense installs. We keep going, and it compounds the looks. It's one thing if we kept the same place, and they changed, or vice versa. But now they're changing looks, and we are changing plays. You think 'Holy Cow,' and you can become overwhelmed. It's hard at that point to really see their true skillset because they're processing and not playing fast, but I think they're both going to be really good players."

On recognizing when Stetson Bennett was a championship-level quarterback...

"As we got going in the year it's funny because I've been on teams where we struggle, we weren't where we needed to be, and when you're going up against the same guys, you have no way of knowing really how good you are. You may think you are really good or bad, but you have no idea when you face the same dudes. After a while, you think we are really not that good. Or you go for awhile and there are some days in practices that I'm going, 'I don't think we are very good.' When we play other people, I think we are really good. I mean that collectively as a team. There are moments with your quarterback where you think you are very good. We are really good on defense, and we can be really good on offense. When that happened, that was a few games - it sure wasn't after Clemson - but after a few games, you start feeling that, 'I think we are going to be pretty good.' Respectfully, the quarterback room was good. Both of them were good players. It was never where you thought just this much of the other. So, as we kept going along, we thought Stetson and the ability he gave us gave us a chance. It was a little bit different in terms of who we were going with. At some point I thought we can win it with either one of them at quarterback."

On Gunner Stockton and Brock Vandagriff…

"They are tremendous players. Brock obviously has been here longer, but his playmaking ability is tremendous. He has a chance, just like Gunner does, to be a tremendous player. I really do [think that]. They're different in the way they go about it, as well as their personalities, which is normal. You're never going to have the same player. You can have three kids, and they have different personalities, all of them. You love them all. This one is a little more quiet, and this one is a little more outgoing, but both of them are going to be tremendous players. It stinks because I think we have a really good quarterback room. People look at it and think they aren't a good quarterback room because of Stetson Bennett. But no, Stetson Bennett is a really good player. Those guys are really good players, and I think they will continue to get better. We ask a lot out of them. We do a lot of quarterback controls, so there is a lot that we ask them to do. It makes it hard on them."

On Arik Gilbert’s potential…

"Well Arik, a lot like Brock, is a unique talent. Their skill set - Arik is little bit different in that Arik has wide receiver background in route-running. He's good with the ball in his hands after the catch, whereas Brock's background is more get the ball in his hands, H-Back, full-back, run after the catch. That's probably the difference. So as Brock needs to continue to develop his running, he's one of those guys where you just have to get it in his hands. And he has better catch radius than I thought. Arik is more of a route-runner. He's been in that, in terms of what he's developed, it's almost like an air-raid lock. So that's been a part of that. Both have unique skillsets. We didn't know exactly what we had with Brock. We knew he was rare in how he worked, and how he came every day. How that developed and kept going, we just kind of fell into it. We knew he was fast once he could catch and run with it. That's different. The GPS says one thing on the field, and you think, 'We have to keep trying that.' Darnell is an unusual talent, but he has a foot issue, and we can't use him. Keeping them healthy, all those guys healthy because they're different. Who are your unique skillsets that you can take advantage of? Wes Welker at one time was excellent for the Dolphins, and then he was brought to the Patriots and was turned into a Hall of Fame type of player. There are certain guys, certain backs where if you can utilize some of their skillsets, you are going to enable them to excel, and that's what we want to do."

On the offensive guards and Tate Ratledge’s recovery…

"I’ll start with Tate because Tate missing obviously other than four snaps of the Clemson game, missed the whole year and that's going to take a toll on him mentally. He is still a young player. It's not like he is Jamaree Salyer and older players, so mentally he has to work back into it. He has all of the attributes you want, he just has to get himself back going again. I don't care how much you are in meetings, I don't care how much you are watching, you are not actually executing. If you shoot a rifle, you can't watch people shoot the gun, you have to actually shoot it. He has to get out there and doing. So getting him out there helps that. We have a lot of depth at guard and tackle, and if we can be mean up front. We have a lot of really good players up front, and now we are just working through it. I don't want to name names because I'll miss somebody, but we have a lot of really talented football players up front. Now we are piecing that together so we can function as one."

On the lack of 1,000-yard wide receivers…

"I really don't go into it that way, but I get it. I get skill players. I've coached them all my life. If you're in basketball you want to score, if you're in baseball you want to hit, and if you're a skill guy you want to touch the football. I get that, and I understand certain skill guys frustrations when they don't. That's their value. When is was at Oklahoma State in 2011, Justin Blackman won the Biletnikoff. We had like seven kids with 100s of yards. Then the next year we had Josh Stewart who had a 1000 yards. So they were different offenses, more air raid like, and some may have had a few more games. But I would've guessed if we had George, we would've had a thousand yard receiver last year because he's a unique skill set. When you get into run-play action and utilize matchups, like we had a number of guys that way, it's almost like inevitable. You're not going to have somebody do that. I'm going to compare it to one thing because I find it very intriguing. It's easy to pick on. No matter which way you go, I found this in the NFL. You create this with quarterbacks where the touchdown to interception ratio exists. Yet everybody knows if you get in the red zone, your best red zone team is more able to run the football in. How does that make any sense? If you're really good at running and you run for touchdowns, and you have the quarterback only throwing for 17 touchdowns with 10 picks, well you could've had 10 more you just didn't need him to. It is what it is. The idea is for us, and it's frustrating for our players, is to score as much as we can, be explosive, and utilize the skill sets we have. We get in the red zone and score touchdowns regardless if we throw or run it. The rest of it is the talk, not really in terms of the value of what it really means. I get what you are saying, I really do. You would love to have someone you can count, too. We had to be really creative last year with who that is. Is it Brock? Is it AD? Last year we had 4000 passing yards and 2000 yards rushing, so that's elite. You would love to have that, but sometimes it just doesn't work itself out that way."