Kirby Smart Explains Decision to Promote Mike Bobo

Georgia football head coach Kirby Smart talked about what led to the decision to promote Mike Bobo as the team's offensive coordinator.

As the Georgia football program gets Spring practice kicked off this week, the team will be experiencing some changes that occurred since the national championship game. Some players are now off to the NFL, others made the decision to enter the portal, and the Bulldogs also made some changes to the coaching staff as well. One of the more prominent ones is the promotion of Mike Bobo as the team's offensive coordinator with Todd Monken making the switch to the NFL.

Georgia's offense had a lot of success under Monken for the past three years, and Bobo will now look to continue to build off of that. There are some questions he will need to answer this Spring such as who his quarterback will be and what the offensive line looks like, but nonetheless, Bobo a long-time veteran coach like Bobo understands what is expected of him. 

Georgia Bulldogs Offensive Coordinator, Mike Bobo

Georgia head coach Kirby Smart addressed the media on Tuesday as the Bulldogs begin Spring practice, and discussed how he came to the decision to promote Bobo and what ways his new offensive coordinator has adapted over the past few years. Here is what Smart had to say: 

"I didn't think about it during the season, it never like crossed my mind I guess. You always know you can lose a coach, but I was focused on the season, so I never thought, well, if Monken leaves, that didn't cross my mind until probably around the national championship game. You start thinking okay, we're the only team playing. We're playing for the National Championship all my attention and focus is there, immediately after the game, your thought is, okay if I lose this guy who am I hiring? I was very comfortable at that point that if we if we lost [Monken] and he decided to go back to the NFL, because that's the only thing I felt like he would leave for that, that I would go with, with [Bobo] because I felt really comfortable with his leadership in the room. You know, I asked Monken his opinion leaving, what he thought and I thought it was important to keep that dynamic in the room set because we weren't losing multiple coaches. I think [Bobo] has grown a lot since he went out to Colorado State from the time he spent here. I went against him at South Carolina, went against him at Auburn, which gave me ultimate confidence that he would get this job done. You know, we played them with probably the most talented defense that I've been a part of, and they went on a 16-play drive there at Auburn against us in the opening drive of the game, and just got a lot of confidence in his leadership skills and what he'll be able to do offensively."

Prior to Bobo's five-year stint as Colorado State's head coach, he was the offensive coordinator for eight seasons and quarterbacks coach for 14 seasons. As stated before, Bobo is no stranger when it comes to the game of college football or what it is like to hold this position at Georgia. It's tough asking any coach to follow up the job that Monken did with the Bulldogs, but from the looks and sound of things, Smart is confident that they have the right man for the job. 

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• Kirby Smart Provides First Update on 2023 Starting QB Battle

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