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Friday, December 29, 2006
No drastic change with Bobo calling plays
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Terence Moore
This is good news. Except for a tweak here and there, nothing will change any time soon regarding Georgia’s offensive philosophy in football. Well, not until the Bulldog Nation runs out of Roman numerals for Uga mascots, or Mike Bobo stops doing a wonderful impression of head coach Mark Richt calling plays.
Bobo doesn’t mind evolving into a Richt clone, by the way. “I’m going to go to him for a lot of things and to ask for advice about certain ways to plan against and to attack defenses,” said Bobo, formerly Georgia’s quarterbacks coach. He officially will begin as offensive coordinator and permanent play caller for the Bulldogs tonight in the Georgia Dome against Virginia Tech in the Chick-fil-A Bowl.
Then Bobo said of Richt, only among the nation’s most prolific coaches, “You just got to use his experience.”
Actually, this is great news, but only if you live in the common sense part of the Bulldog Nation. There are those who’d rather spit at a picture of Herschel Walker than have Georgia continue with what critics believe is a flawed offense. “You hear people saying that we’re not scoring in the red zone. We’re turning the ball over. We’re not scoring enough points, because they want us to score on every drive, and they want us to be No. 1 in the country on offense,” said Bobo, the former Bulldogs quarterback, rattling off the list with ease. “We know that, deep down inside, everybody realizes that being [the best offense in the nation] is hard to do. The bottom line is winning games.”
The bottom line has been impressive for Georgia during Richt’s six seasons, which have produced three SEC Eastern Division titles, two conference championships and a 60-17 record for the fifth-best winning percentage (.779) among active coaches.
Much of that happened under Richt’s play calling. And get this: The primary difference between the play calling of Richt and Bobo is that Bobo has more of a drawl when he speaks into the headsets. That’s why Bobo will continue the Richt-like offensive strategies he used as Georgia’s temporary play caller during its 15-12 victory over Georgia Tech to end the regular season. The transition began after Richt decided to relinquish his play-calling duties after 13 consecutive seasons.
Was Richt too predictable at times down the stretch? Yep. Did he have a tendency not to stick with one of his Three Horsemen (Kregg Lumpkin, Danny Ware and Thomas Brown) when one of them was sizzling? Uh-huh. Were those mighty enough reasons to trash Richt’s overall play calling? Please. The guy spent his seven years before coming to Georgia running a Florida State offense that ranked among the nation’s top five in scoring five times. He coached six FSU quarterbacks who eventually reached the NFL, and there also were his two Heisman Trophy winners.
So why all of the Richt bashers (who likely will become Bobo bashers) regarding Georgia’s offense?
Amnesia comes to mind.
Georgia began this season with a question mark behind center after five years of exclamation marks. Remember? While Richt helped David Greene and D.J. Shockley finish as two of the best quarterbacks in SEC history, Richt started three different quarterbacks this season before settling on Matthew Stafford, a gifted freshman, but still a freshman.
The running game lost the efficient Brown to a knee injury in mid-October. Plus, in addition to the Bulldogs producing more turnovers (30) than any Georgia team in 27 years, the receivers kept killing drives with dropped passes, and the offensive line kept losing players.
No wonder only Mississippi State and Ole Miss ranked lower than Georgia in the SEC this season in total offense. “We’ve been really successful under Coach Richt, and he’s still catching some grief, but it never fazes the man,” Bobo said. “He’s very comfortable with what we’re doing and how we are approaching each game, and I’ve learned from him. That’s definitely going to help me in the future.”
A little less vanilla and slightly more tutti-frutti from Georgia’s playbook at crunch time would help Bobo, too.
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