Q: Kirby has talked about offense has gotta be more explosive this year. Just in your mind, what are, what are the, the keys to making that happen to the, the '26 offense being more explosive?
Bobo: I think it, it comes down to a lot of things. identifying play makers, that make plays. we call it competitive excellence.
When opportunity, presents itself, to make a play, you make those plays, and a lot of times you can't script those in camp. You know, you're installing, offense is installing, defense is installing, but opportunities are gonna come your way, and when that opportunity comes, you make that play, for the offense to be explosive.
But a lot of things go into that, not just play makers. We've gotta protect, we've gotta see things better at the quarterback position. I think all of that, has been improving since the spring, the older we're becoming at that position. And, and then being more aggressive at times, to push the ball down the field.
We had a young first-year starter last year at quarterback and, you know, we wanted to protect him some with the run game, and some easy outlets to, to Zach Branch. I think the more he matures, the more we'll be able to evolve as an offense.
Q: Coach, y'all had a late addition to your signing class, obviously, in Tre Shields. What do you remember when y'all first kind of found out about him, and tell us about that process along with kind of what you've seen from him since he enrolled.
Bobo: Tre, from right up the road, Coach Thacker, Andrew Thacker, has a relationship with those coaches, and actually, found out about him and sent us some film.
We evaluated the film, myself, Coach Coley, and Coach Smart, and decided to give him opportunity, and we're glad he's here. He's a hardworking young man, and you know, he's young. He didn't get to go through spring, so he's still learning but, glad he's a Bulldog.
Q: Coach, with this tough schedule
Bobo: Oh, man.
Q: I know this is, going to be a tough schedule this year, and you're a quarterback guy. Do you think you'll have a chance to play another quarterback, just to kind of give Gunner some rest this season?
Bobo: Well, those opportunities are happening right now.
The way we treat, you know, practice for us are like games. we have two big scrimmages, in, in our stadium, and we feel like, you know, when we scrimmage, we're going against one of the best defenses in the country and our defense, and they get a chance on a daily basis to practice against those. So those guys are being evaluated right now, and all are doing a good job and given multiple opportunities.
But you know, those two scrimmages will be big for those young quarterbacks this year.
Q: Yeah, Zachariah Branch was just a big part of your offense a season ago. How do you go about replacing him and tailoring this offense to the talents that you guys do have?
Bobo: It’s, it's a good question. We lost a lot of production and, and a lot of that production was Zachariah Branch. and we lost a lot of experience last year with some skill players, the, the four receivers and, and the tight end.
So, that's what we're in the midst of doing right now, trying to find out who we are, and the best way for us to move the ball offensively, you know, to control the game, to be explosive, you know. And, and we're in a competition for that, you know. It's not just necessarily the receiver position, it's not just the tight end position, it's trying to figure out a balance of what we do best as an offense, what our quarterbacks do best as an offense, and where are we gonna tailor, you know, how, who and how we're gonna try to get touches to those people.
So I think every year offensively, you're a little bit different. you know, I, I think everybody in this room knows, you know, we want to run the ball here. you gotta be able to run the ball and you gotta be able to stop the run. Um, and that, that method of winning football games is never gonna change, here at the University of Georgia under Coach Smart.
But as an offense, besides running the ball, how are we gonna be explosive? Who's gonna get those to- touches? And that's our, our job as coaches to figure that out
Q: Mike, through the spring, and I don't know, five or six, however, however many practices you've had, what, what have you seen with some of the guys, that are up-and-comers at wide receiver in terms of guys that, that might emerge to be able to be those kind of playmakers?
Bobo: Well, you know, like I mentioned, we lost a lot of guys in the receiver room. You know, everybody talks about Zach, and the 80-something catches, but, you know, you lose Dylan Bell, Noah Thomas, Colby Young. a lot of, a lot of experience. you know, we've got talented guys at the University of Georgia, but they're, they're young.
But, you know, they've got opportunity. those touches have to go somewhere. They're doing a good job of competing, and, I really don't, don't want to single out one guy. we've finished six practices. we've got a, a day where it's just meetings today, but we have two more before a big scrimmage.
And, you know, not that the scrimmages are, are the end-all be-all, it's a collective work, but we're working toward that scrimmage for those guys to go out and make them in more game-like situations. But, um, you know, those guys have done a good job of competing, and I like there's good competition in that room.
Q: Hi, Mike. I wanted to ask you about the, you talk about Gunner, you know, pushing the ball downfield, cutting it loose or, or what. What is that, the fine line that quarterbacks have to be able to, to recognize when to do that, when to maybe, like in Gunner's case, maybe tuck it and run? And, and how is he doing as, as far as, recognizing that kind of thing?
Bobo: Well, I, I think it's experience. I think it's having confidence in, in what you see, and, and, and, and throwing on, and throwing on time tells you a, tells you a lot, as a quarterback. but you can't be so much so risk-averse you're afraid to push the ball down, down the field. Now, the... knock, knock on wood, a really good thing about Gunner is that, you know, he didn't turn the football over a lot, which is huge.
You know, and when you push the ball downfield and you're a little more aggressive, sometimes turnovers happen. so there's that fine line, and, you know, through spring practice and these six practices, we've talked about pushing the ball downfield, being aggressive, and you learn what you can and can't do.
Right before I came in here, we were watching, you know, NFL scrambles of guys making plays, scrambling in the pocket, keeping their eyes downfield, you know, and Josh Allen makes this unbelievable throw, and my quote in there to those guys was, "You can't... Don't overestimate your ability. You're not Josh Allen. You know, you can't make that throw."
So you gotta know what you can and can't do. Um, you know, and, you know, there are chances for explosives on broken, broken plays. Gunner had a lot of those last year on broken plays where he scrambled and made plays, but sometimes he didn't give enough space to between him and the defender and took some wicked shots.
And, you know, a lot of that's on Gunner - told him: ”A lot of that's on you." that's, that's who he is to some extent. He's, he's gonna, he's gonna, to the last minute, hold onto that ball to try to make a play, and we've working on trying to extend plays and be a little safer in and out of the pocket, and he's done a good job of that.
And it's something we're working on hard, with him. day in and day out, we're getting examples of that. We've tried to create more scrambles in practice, and then I've tried to call more plays where we can push the ball downfield. Now, you know, sometimes we call that play and they play a coverage, and the right play is to check it down to the back and we gotta do that too as a quarterback.
Q: Yeah, I guess just one more on Gunner to follow up. You, you mentioned him being a first-year starter last year, having to, to protect him at times. What have, what have you seen from him this off-season, this summer so far in fall camp that makes you think he's, he's more confident, doesn't need to be protected, and like Dash, is willing to take more of those chances down the field?
Bobo: Well, I, I mean it, one, experience. you know, the more a guy plays, the more guys get repetition to more confident he's gonna, he's gonna feel in that position. the thing I love about Gunner, we all know, his toughness. We see that toughness. But, this guy never thinks he's arrived. He's always willing to listen.
He's always willing to take coaching, whether it's, you know, in a film room or sometimes it's hard coaching on the field. He's not sensitive. he wants to do what's best for the team, and what's best for the team, it might be him improving in some ways, and he's worked hard on the areas that we, Coach Streeter and myself have, have asked him to work on, and he's continued to work on them.
it's never a why of why we do this. It's how can I help the team be better? And, you know, he knows that he can, he needs... We all need to play better, and coach better, on certain situations, and there's always room for improvement, and he's always constantly every day striving to improve as a, as a player
Q: Yeah. One, do you plan on keeping the mustache after fall camp? And two, how do you go about getting more out of the tight ends this year?
Bobo: Mine doesn't look as good as yours, okay? No, no, a- a- actually the quarterbacks were doing it, and right, I think it was the last weekend before camp, my other son, Jake, said that, "Hey, we're, we're, we're growing a mustache for camp."
And I hadn't shaved 'cause we were in vacation, so I just, I left the mustache. But after camp, I think I'm, I'm shaving it. They, they called... They said I was soft if I was gonna shave it before I came in here today, so I didn't shave it. I thought about it. What was the other question? I'm sorry.
Q: How do you go about getting more out of the tight ends?
Bobo: You know, that's, that, more out of the tight ends, okay, that's, that's k- kind of goes back to trying to figure out who our identity is, this year. We lost a lot of experience in that receiver room. We got a little bit more experience coming back in the tight end room. And those, you know, you're constantly in a competition to see if you're in more 11 personnel, more 12 personnel, what best fits, fits us each game going in.
But we have more experience there. We've got guys that have played some, played some football in, in Lawson Luckie. Reddell got a little action last year. two young freshmen that played a little bit last year. So, um, you know, I, I feel, I feel good about that room because we've got some depth and, and we have good competition.
And when you have depth and good competition, those, those, those, those guys usually find their way on the field.
Q: Curious kind of what the off-season, like leading up to fall camp, looks like for you guys. You've featured a lot of different skill players at different places over the years. Um, like do you look at a depth chart and say, "We have all these tight ends," and, and kind of explore some of those possibilities?
Or, or sort of, you know, does that just kind of come through fall camp and dependent on who emerges?
Bobo: I think a little bit of both. I think you, you look at what you've got coming back, and you, you self-scout yourself, and then you do studies of other teams and how they've used personnel and personnel groupings, and that's stuff that we did in the off-season - different ways to use tight ends out of different personnel groupings, different ways to get guys touches. You do all kind of studies. and then y- things kind of evolve through fall camp. you know, who emerges? Is there a young guy that emerges? Are these guys a little bit better than you thought?
Are we more explosive in this personnel group? So it's an evolving thing that, that, you know, as a coach, you're trying to find the right mixture of who to put on the field and when, and, try to, try to help your, your team get first downs and be explosive. But I do think, you know, us at Georgia, we have a big volume of, of offense.
Of, you know, we, we do a lot of things offensively, and we don't carry all those things in o- one game. But our volume allows us to be multiple from game to game in how we want to attack somebody. And when you have multiple positions, whether it's tight end, receivers, or backs, and you've got good depth at all those, it allows you to do more things
Q: Mike, to be what y'all want to be on offense, i, I mean, it's great to have a lot of good options at receiver and tight end, but do you need that, like, one guy that you feel good about and the defense has to worry about, like the way Zach Branch was last year and the way Brock Bowers was here for three years?
Bobo: There's a lot of different ways to move the ball. There's a lot of different ways to be explosive. But I think any time you've got a guy, that the guys are constantly worried about on the defensive side, I think it allows you to do more things off of that.
But you know, over, over the years, our, our, our offense here since I've been here or previous, it’s - the thing, it runs through the quarterback sometimes. And, you know, if they're good at distributing, you know, the defense has to defend everybody. you know, you might have that one guy that they put a little more attention to, but the quarterback does the right thing - if you've got players at all these positions that you talked about, you gotta trust them to go make that, go make plays. and you know, I think when you can do things, a lot of different things well, I think you got a chance to be real real successful. Now last year, as I said earlier, we had a first-year quarterback, and a lot of what we did was, you know, to protect him and allow him to get confidence that, that the run game, which is always gonna help a quarterback, security blanket in Zach Branch and some of these screens and throws off of, run game RPOs helped him gain confidence. And whereas he gained confidence, I thought he started to play bet- better the later we got in the season.
Q: Obviously, Talyn Taylor was the big get, the five-star receiver in that 2025 class. But kinda talk about other guys like CJ Wiley, Landon Roldan, Thomas Blackshear Tyler Williams, and how, and how they're coming along. Well, those are all the guys that were true freshmen last year that you mentioned.
Bobo: The, the class of Thomas, Talon, Tyler, Blackshear, and, and Wiley. And you know, these guys are, are, are talent- talented guys, and they're out there right now competing, you know, for a position to, to, to get in the rotation and get opportunities. And it goes back to what I said one of the first or second questions.
We're looking for guys that when the opportunity comes, they have that competitive excellence that they can, they can make that play. and it's not necessarily down the field. It might be turning it into a hitch, into an explosive play. and then we've signed some guys this year. So, there's not really one guy that I wanna, I wanna single out that, like Seth's like, "Who's that guy?"
I mean, that, that's, that's gonna happen, you know, over time, when we play football and scrimmage and, and who's gonna emerge. And, but there's gonna be a lot of opportunities for those guys, for one of those guys to be, one of those guys that are gonna get the ball thrown to them on multiple occasions.
Q: Coach, you had a couple years now with the radio communication in helmet. I wonder, is your conversation with Gunner different in year two versus year one in terms of the... I guess you have until 15 seconds left on the play clock, one and two. I remember Venables saying now defenses are able to pick things up so much faster with these iPads. Have you had to adjust your play calling?
Bobo: Yeah, it, it allows you to, to like sometimes, you know... First question, the earpiece. you know, there, there were kind - there were little reminders, with Gunner, you know, before the, before I might say the play of the situation and what we're thinking here. Sometimes we operate fast and are able to talk to him while he's at the line like sometimes.
But, but we're a little, we're a no huddle, but we're not a fast no huddle, so sometimes it gets below 15. So my my talks to him have to be a little bit before I give the play. but when we are going faster, he's at the line, I'm able to talk to him a little bit. But these guys prepare very well, and sometimes you don't wanna confuse them, but you wanna give them little reminders.
As far as the iPads, I think, you know, when you look at those you get immediate feedback after every drive how, how teams are playing, you formationally down in distance, so you're able to make adjustments or do a little bit something different, a lot quicker than in years past. A lot of times it might be, "Hey, I have to wait till halftime and we gotta draw it up and we gotta talk about it."
Now you're able to see it and you're able to communicate it, you know, either from the sideline to the booth or the booth to the sideline. Um, you know, and then, you know, you're seeing more, more and more teams. You know, you got the teams that go fast and talk to the guy, and then you got the teams, you see more and more teams huddling.
I think Indiana, they might have huddled every play, and they're breaking that huddle in less than 15 seconds. So that defensive coach can't talk to their guy on the, on the field about, you know, the formation and what we wanna run here. so you're seeing kinda two different sides, and we kinda wanna be multiple and do it all.
