Why Todd Monken Bought Into The Georgia Bulldogs
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ATLANTA - Kirby Smart wanted to change the perception of the Georgia Bulldogs’ offense in 2020. That is part of what landed Todd Monken the offensive coordinator job that January.
What happened in 2019 was a regression.
Whether the perception of Georgia’s offense has changed or not is not as important as the fact that it has changed for the better. The Dawgs were not flying up and down the field and scoring the way that they did before Monken was hired.
Going from an NFL offensive coordinator to a college offensive coordinator seems like a professional step down on the surface, but Monken bought what Smart was selling at the beginning of 2020.
“I don’t take it lightly in terms of the jobs I look at. Kirby Smart is a Georgia alum. That is a big, big piece. His heart is here. This is his home,” Monken said. “In this day and age where coaches take other jobs and the grass is greener, I didn’t feel like that would be the case.”
The grass in Athens was not so green when Monken first arrived. COVID and who was going to be the starting quarterback were two of the main issues. Without spring ball, facing a defense with 12 future NFL draft picks in fall camp every day does not sound fun to deal with. It probably wouldn't be fun to deal with even if there was spring practice.
But Georgia got through that season- a season that was not guaranteed. Flashforward and it's an offense that has scored almost 40 points per-game and a team that is contending for a national championship for the second-straight year. Oh, and Stetson Bennett was a Heisman finalist. Bennett said he didn’t even truly understand football before Monken arrived.
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This is a championship program, and Monken’s handprint is all over it. “Connection” has been the word of the year for the Georgia Bulldogs. How close the team and staff are is extremely evident even from the outside looking in.
Monken has spoken only good things about Smart and Georgia’s staff, specifically with how important the university is to a lot of the guys. The players would tell you it is one huge family, however the signal caller would tell you it’s a business. Monken acknowledges that he has a great relationship with Smart and others, but that it is important to remember how the sports world works.
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He offered this rant (something that was quite frequent on Wednesday):
“I think it’s great, but let’s not kid ourselves about what we do. I get paid to score points and run the offense, and that relationship only goes so far, and I don’t want it any different. He’s my boss. My job is to work my ass off so we can be as good as we can be on offense. The moment I don’t see it that way is the moment I’m wrong. This is a business. I’ve gone to organizations that said ‘this is a family.’ This isn’t a family. You’re going to fire me if we suck, so don’t say it’s a family. This is the way that it is. It’s what we choose to do. This is a business, and I get it that way. My job is to do the best job that I can for Kirby Smart and our players, and yeah that’s hard. This is a hard job. It’s hard to win a lot, and that’s part of it.”
He was joking, but at the core, that really is how it is. Monken is about winning and scoring points. He has been clear about that for a while now. In August he said “I’m paid to score.” He said that again today. He laid out several profound lines.
“I’d rather be winning in Alaska than losing in San Diego.”
“Your happiness is in winning. It is about winning.”
There were plenty of other statements that stood out, but what sticks out more than those quick, one-liners is how he feels about his job.
“It’s been great. It’s been everything he said it was going to be when he hired me. He said, ‘I’ll let you do what you want to do. I’m the head coach and there are certain things that I believe in, but I want someone to come in and run it and I don’t have to worry about it.’ Hopefully, I’ve done that,” Monken said.
If you scan back through Smart’s tenure at Georgia, the success is obviously abundant. The losses have been few and far between, but hiring Monken was a positive change. You couldn’t look forward two or three years and know what was going to be accomplished, but the hire was a successful choice. Go look at the trophy case in Butts-Mehre.
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