ATHENS — Todd Monken doesn’t have a favorite. He certainly worked closer and longer with Buster Faulkner and viewed him as a protégé as the young coach worked alongside him as a quality-control analyst for three years at Georgia.
Then Mike Bobo showed up in January 2022. He walked into the Georgia’s football offices loaded with credentials and experience as both a head coach and offensive coordinator on the Power 5 level and more than a few battle scars to show for it. But Monken said Bobo never flaunted it or even brought it up. Instead, he quietly stowed away his pride and rolled up his sleeves to do whatever needed to be done.
In the end, Monken said both coaches lifted him up. That’s why he is so grateful both to them and the Bulldogs during this week of giving thanks. While Monken got the majority of credit for Georgia’s offensive rise during the run to back-to-back national championships the past two years, he made it clear that none of it would have been possible had those two coaches not been part of his staff.
“I’m not sure where I read it, but you know when they talk about ‘comparison is the thief of joy?’ Well, it’s true,” said Monken, who left Georgia in February to return to the NFL with the Baltimore Ravens. “So, whether I’m comparing me to somebody or comparing Mike to somebody or Buster to somebody, it’s just a waste of time and energy. Mike Bobo is an elite football coach. Buster Faulkner is an elite football coach. The staff we had when I was at Georgia was elite at game-planning, and that’s why we were good.”
Those two coaches will be front-and-center when the No. 1 Bulldogs (11-0) and Georgia Tech (6-5) clash for the 115th time Saturday night at Bobby Dodd Stadium (7:30 p.m., ABC).
Faulkner was named the Yellow Jackets’ offensive coordinator in December, though he remained with the Bulldogs through their run to the 2022 national championship in January. Coach Kirby Smart tabbed Bobo, his best friend, to succeed Monken after John Harbaugh lured Monken to Baltimore to run the Ravens’ offense.
So, there will be no one more interested than Monken in seeing how Saturday’s game plays out. With Faulkner game-planning and calling plays, the Jackets have shown a 14.7-points-per-game improvement and are averaging a hefty 435.1 yards per game. They’re almost perfectly balanced from a run-pass standpoint, with an average of 35 rush attempts and 33 passes per game. Faulkner has done that while implementing a new offensive system and breaking in a new quarterback in Texas A&M transfer Haynes King.
Meanwhile, Bobo’s Bulldogs picked up under right where they left off under Monken. The statistical similarities are uncanny, with Georgia scoring 40.4 points per game compared with 41.1 last season, while averaging almost exactly the number of yards (501.8 to 501.1).
“None of this is a surprise to me,” said Monken, driving him home late Tuesday night from the Ravens’ football complex. “I had no doubt in my mind that they would do a great job. Both of them have a great track record of being very successful. They’re both low-ego guys, hard workers, really smart, and they’re not married to one system; they’re married to what works. They’ve both been fun to watch.”
The chief difference in the Bulldogs is they are throwing the ball much more. They have 379 attempts to date compared with 336 through 15 games last season. Quarterback Carson Beck and a deep corps of receivers is the reason for that.
In fact, the prospect of retooling the Georgia offense with Beck at the controls almost kept Monken with the Bulldogs. He said turned down an opportunity to return to the NFL with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in order to remain at UGA in December. It was going to take something truly special for him to leave Athens.
“I knew they were going to kill it this year,” Monken said of the Bulldogs’ offense. “I’m thinking about leaving and I’m going, ‘Dang, Carson’s got a chance to kill it if everybody’s healthy,’ which they finally are now. I knew the line was going to be good. I knew the receivers were good. Looking ahead, I knew they were going to be good, whether I was there or not.”
Monken was, of course, the main reason the Bulldogs went with Stetson Bennett rather than Beck when JT Daniels went out with a back injury early in the 2021 season. Obviously, that worked out well as the Bulldogs won 29 of 30 games and two national championships while Bennett earned MVP honors in every playoff game Georgia played.
All the while, though, Monken said there were signs that Beck was getting ready to take off as a quarterback. He said Beck really started to come into his own during the second half of last season. Thanks to the Bulldogs’ penchant for blowouts, Beck was able to play as a backup in seven games and played extensively in the second half of Georgia’s 65-7 win over TCU in the national title game in Los Angeles.
“In a lot of ways, Carson just had to flat-line out his emotions,” Monken said. “He may think differently, but the wave of good and bad playing quarterback can be tough, and he struggled with that sometimes. Last year, you could really see that leveling out. He was very comfortable when he got into games. We still threw it at the end of games last year, and you could just see his confidence and poise take off. He always had it. He always had good arm talent; he always had good pocket presence; he always was really smart. He just needed to level out the mental and emotional side of it.”
Being even-keeled would have to be considered Beck’s greatest trait in his first full season as a starter in college. A 6-foot-4, 220-pound junior, Beck is on pace to establish a school record for completion percentage (72.9). He’s averaging 301.8 yards passing with 21 touchdowns and five interceptions and is starting to receive some late-season buzz as a longshot Heisman Trophy candidate.
As Monken can attest, the NFL has taken notice.
“I even told our scouts here: ‘Carson Beck, if everything comes together like I think it will, the guy’s a first-round pick,’” Monken said. “He’s not going to be a free agent or down-the-line guy. Just put his film on. Yeah, he’s got great protection and good players around him, but so do other guys. He’s got first-round pick potential. He does.”
As for Tech-Georgia, Monken definitely plans to tune in. He hasn’t had much time to watch either team in action much this season, nor talk often to either of his former charges. He, of course, has his own hands full as the Ravens’ offensive coordinator. In addition to preparing to play the Los Angeles Chargers on Sunday, Monken is having to figure out how 8-3 Baltimore can carry on in the wake of losing star tight end Mark Andrews last week.
As for Saturday in Atlanta, Monken considers himself still very much a Georgia Bulldog. He speaks reverently of Smart and his “off-the-chart” organizational skills and football savvy. He said he’s often asked in NFL circles why Georgia is so successful. Monken said he’s boiled down his answer to a couple of sentences.
“This is the deal: He is a relentless recruiter, so he fights like hell to get the best players that he can,” Monken said. “And then, he approaches it like he doesn’t have the best players. He prepares every week like he’s the underdog. He prepares like every game is going to be a dogfight. That’s how you stay on top.”
The Bulldogs, of course, still haven’t lost since Monken left. Just this week, Bobo was named a semifinalist for the Broyles Award, which goes to each year to the coach deemed the nation’s best assistant. Faulkner was on the original list of 51 candidates.
Monken was a finalist for that award last year and spoke at the presentation. But he’ll take no credit for the success his former aides are having now.
“Like I said, none of this surprises me,” Monken said. “I’m not surprised Buster’s doing well. I’m not surprised that Mike Bobo’s doing a great job or that staff is doing a great job or that the players are having success or that Carson’s having a good season. They’ve taken some of what we were doing and made it a lot better. That has nothing to do with me.”
Well, maybe just a little.
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