Mike Bobo will call the plays as the head coach at Colorado State. (Colorado State)
Mike Bobo isn’t ready to give up his play-calling duties.
He was Mark Richt’s play caller — much to the chagrin of many Georgia fans — and will continue to do so as the head coach at Colorado State, despite having brought pal and former Georgia offensive line coach Will Friend as his offensive coordinator.
"I've been calling plays the last eight years, and Will has been there for four. It was a big part of getting Will here. He wanted to make sure I'd call the plays — not that he didn't want to, but that I wouldn't give them to somebody else. For the last four years, I called the plays, but he was a big part of that process. We worked well together during the week and on game day, communicating what we wanted to run, what scheme, what concept. He's a big part of what we do and the success we had at Georgia.
"It's a collective thing. During the week, the offensive side of the ball, I don't know if I could handle it if I wasn't involved in the day-to-day grind of putting a game plan together and getting ready for a game. That's what makes it fun."
Richt did the same thing after taking the UGA job in 2001.
He called plays until giving Bobo a shot against Georgia Tech at the end of the 2006 season.
Bobo was then allowed to match wits with Virginia Tech’s top-ranked defense in the 2006 Chick-fil-A Bowl.
The Bulldogs scored 18 fourth-quarter points for a 31-24 victory, although Georgia’s defense deserved much of the credit for that win.
Bobo sounds like he’s using much of what he learned working under Richt.
“I was there through that process of him doing it while being a head coach, the demands on his time, how he structured it,” he said. “I’ve got first-hand knowledge of the way I’m going to do it, how I watched him do it. That’s where you have to have good support around, too.”
