Former Georgia Bulldogs OC Todd Monken: "I Get Way too Much Credit for Our Success"

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ATHENS - Former Georgia Bulldogs offensive coordinator Todd Monken was pretty clear about his role for Kirby Smart and the Dawgs over the last three years. 

“I get way too much credit for our success,” he said during his introductory press conference with the Baltimore Ravens on Tuesday. 

It remains to be seen if that’s the case. But Monken laid out a pretty good case for what he said. 

“Kirby Smart and the coaches that I worked with there,” Monken told reporters. "I came in there, and the culture was already set, the players were already recruited. The staff that we put together was tremendous in terms of our success.”

The record speaks for itself. In three seasons, Georgia teams with Monken at the trigger lost three times. They won two Peach Bowls, an Orange Bowl, and SEC title and two national championships. 

You could see how folks could get confused about “too much credit.”

Then again, Kirby’s teams at Georgia have’t lost much to begin with. Even with James Coley, who only has Brian Schottenheimer in front in him in terms of failed offenses at Georgia since the invention of the forward pass, managed to only lose twice in his year as offensive coordinator. 

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Coley’s failures - managing to score fewer than 30 points in all but one of the Dawgs’ final nine games - pushed Kirby to make a change. And that change wasn’t just in coordinator; it was in philosophy as well. 

Imagine trying to beat Joe Burrow while scoring fewer than 30 points. 

Ha. 

Now Mike Bobo comes into a situation that’s better than the one Monken inherited (and, yes, I said inherited). If what Monken said in Baltimore on Tuesday is true, the circumstances for this fall are the same as they were in 2020. 

The culture is already in place at Georgia. The players - namely the quarterbacks - have already been recruited to Georgia. The staff is already there as well. Is Bobo good enough to plug and play is way to a national title as a first-year coordinator under Kirby? 

Glenn Schumann and Will Muschamp just did. 

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It is unclear if Monken is “getting too much credit” for the last few years. Rarely did he have to win a shootout. But when Monken’s offense had to score more than 30 to win - against Ohio State and LSU - this season they did. 

Other than that, and save the 2021 SEC Championship Game, Georgia’s defense pretty well took care of business. Think about it this way: Monken was able to call plays in 25 games over the last two years where Georgia’s defense held the other team at 20 points or fewer. That’s 25 of 30 games. 

The five games that didn’t happen? 2021 SECCG, 2022 Kent State, 2022 Missouri, 2022 SECCG and 2022 Peach Bowl. Georgia won all but one of those games, and that was the case because the offense did what it needed to do to win. 

Time will tell if Monken was given too much credit. But it is clear he at least deserves a fair share of it.