Mike Bobo on his second act at Georgia football offensive coordinator and that Alabama loss

DANIA BEACH, Fla. — By most measures, the first chapter of the second act of Mike Bobo as Georgia football offensive coordinator could be considered a success story.

Returning to a familiar role at a school where he was an assistant for 14 seasons and played quarterback, Bobo sat in the coaches’ box as play-caller this season for a program coming off back-to-back national titles and chasing a third.

Even his biggest critics couldn’t chirp much during a 12-0 regular season during which injuries to key players had Bobo having to dig deeper into his playbook to come up with answers.

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He went to the Broyles Award ceremony in Little Rock earlier this month as a finalist for the second time, however, coming off Georgia’s worst rushing output (78 yards) and total yards (321) for the season in a 27-24 loss to Alabama that knocked the Bulldogs out of the playoff and ended their national title hopes.

Top playmakers Brock Bowers and Ladd McConkey, who were in and out of the lineup this season, played through ankle injuries in that game.

“I look back at that game, we didn’t convert third downs we needed to convert that ballgame,” Bobo said Thursday at an Orange Bowl press conference, his first time available to reporters since the preseason. “We did a good job of having third and manageable all year and that game we didn’t do well on third down and quite frankly it was third and ones and third and twos that we didn’t continue drives.”

Bobo had a tough act to follow when coach Kirby Smart promoted him after a season as a UGA offensive analyst to replace Todd Monken, who headed to the NFL to be the Baltimore Ravens offensive coordinator with two national title rings.

Bobo’s offense is eighth in the nation in total offense, ninth in scoring and passing offense, but the 482.9 yards and 38.4 points per game are a slight dip from the 501.2 and 41.1 of the Bulldogs last season.

Georgia’s 305.6 yards passing yards per game are nearly 10 yards better than last season and the 54.8 percent third down conversion rate (No.2 nationally) is ahead of the 51.1 from last season.

“I don’t necessarily think (there was) pressure following Coach Monken, I think there’s pressure in every job,” Bobo said. “Kirby might have said it before. Pressure is a privilege. When you’re at a place like the University of Georgia, there’s pressures for us to play well, for us to win. That’s part of the job. You learn to live with those pressures.”

Georgia is on pace to have its most passing yards per game since 314.2 under Bobo as coordinator in 2013. The Bulldogs have passed the ball 48.6 percent of the time, up from 46.9 last season.

“I think he’s done a great job up to this point,” said quarterback Carson Beck, a first-year starter who is returning in 2024. “I think a lot of people give him hate and criticism and I just don’t think it’s fair. The statistics we’ve put up as an offense and the way he’s been able to call plays and be explosive this year and really utilized the guys we’ve had on offense, I think he’s done a great job and I think that’s only going to improve as we continue.”

Bobo, who also was coordinator under Mark Richt from 2007-14, said he worried about the weight on Georgia players “sometimes this year, the pressure to winning so many games and having to come back and trying to three-peat.”

That’s gone now and Georgia players can play more loose and maybe have more fun Saturday against an undermanned Florida State team.

Bobo was asked about injuries to key playmakers in that SEC championship game loss, but didn’t bite.

“We got our butt whipped to a very good football team,” Bobo said. “We didn’t make enough plays to win the ballgame.”

Bobo, 49, has coached Georgia to eight bowl victories, including Sugar Bowl wins in 2007 and 2002, but he last won a bowl game in 2012 in the Capital One Bowl in Orlando in a 45-31 win over Nebraska. He left for Colorado State at the end of the 2014 season before Georgia won the Belk Bowl and went 0-3 in bowls at Colorado State.

He still owns a now 26-year bowl record from his days as Bulldog quarterback for consecutive completions with 19 in a row in a 33-6 Outback Bowl win against Wisconsin from the 1997 season.

“Oh, he reminds us all the time,” Beck said of a day Bobo completed 26 of 28 passes in that game.

Offensive lineman Dylan Fairchild said earlier this season that Bobo told the team he had a “point to prove,” in his second go-round as Georgia coordinator after one-year stints in that role at South Carolina and Auburn.

“I don’t know, I think you’ve got a point to prove every time you go out there,” Bobo said Thursday. “That you want to be the best. Offensively, every time we put the ball down, we want to go score.”

He called himself “blessed to be back at the University of Georgia and have this opportunity to call plays, but I’m also blessed to be in a room with great coaches that I have on this staff. I enjoy that every day going to work with those guys and coaching these young men.”

This article originally appeared on Athens Banner-Herald: Mike Bobo evaluates his first season back as Georgia football OC