Mike Bobo is as excited has he’s been in years, ready for fresh start with Gamecocks
It wasn’t simply Mike Bobo wanting to go right from the end of his tenure at Colorado State into another job. In some ways, he needed to.
“If I didn’t have the right opportunity, I was going to go somewhere and work,” Bobo said. “I wasn’t going to sit out for a year. No. 1, I would be divorced if I stayed at home. My wife wouldn’t like that too much.”
It was his wife who made the astute observation about his demeanor in his new gig, offensive coordinator at South Carolina for his old college teammate, Will Muschamp.
Bobo was walking around South Carolina’s palatial operations facility, his new home for just more than a week, on a FaceTime call, showing it off to his five kids, all still in Colorado. Then his wife got on the phone.
“She goes, you haven’t sounded this excited in three years,” Mike Bobo said. “I’m excited to be here, excited to not have to walk out of that meeting room and grab that phone and the head coach call you get all the time.”
On Monday afternoon, he sat next to the man who has to do all that, Muschamp, as he talked about getting back to recruiting, back to coaching, back to the nitty gritty of the thing.
It’s simple to say, but Muschamp’s future is very tied into Bobo’s success. The Gamecocks are coming off a 4-8 season in which the offense struggled badly. Muschamp’s future at the job will almost assuredly be tied to offensive improvement, which in turn will be very tied in with Bobo.
“I pinpointed Mike from the beginning,” Muschamp said. “I talked to several people in the process, but Mike is obviously, his situation, didn’t really know where that was going to go with Colorado State and for whatever reason fell the right way for us at South Carolina. Personally I’ve had tremendous respect for him as a play caller.”
Muschamp said what stood out most was the ability to adapt and evolve since his Georgia days.
Bobo was asked directly about having a level of autonomy and free rein on the offense under a defensive coach. The answer pointed to collaboration with Muschamp and trust the head coach has in him. He said he has no worries about Muschamp getting on the headset and telling him what to run.
It helps that even when he was a head coach in Fort Collins, he remained a play-caller and a de facto offensive coordinator. He referred to his OC with CSU as “by title.”
“Every day I was in that offensive meeting, I ran it like an offensive coordinator,” Bobo said. “I just had to and say, hey guys, I’m not the head coach right now.
“I said, ‘I’m leaving it at the door. We can talk like we normally do in a (offensive) room.’ So I don’t think that’ll be much of a change for me.”
He promised an offense that started around being physical and running the ball, but also brought balance. It’s fair to say the Gamecocks grew particularly pass-heavy in recent seasons, first under Kurt Roper and then under Bryan McClendon.
His offenses at Georgia from 2007-2014 often used fullbacks in front of a fleet of NFL tailbacks, but through that stretch and five years at CSU, the scheme evolved to include much more spread.
Bobo said his plan will evolve with the talent and what it does well, a bit like Muschamp has tried to approach things.
“Whatever it takes for us to move the ball,” Bobo said. “If you’ve watched or looked at offenses that I’ve coordinated over the years it’s been, some years it’s been a lot of 11 personnel, three receivers. one tight end, one back, it’s been two backs, it’s been 12, two tight ends, two receivers. Our last year there, we had a lot of 22 personnel because we weren’t very successful throwing the ball. So we adapted.
“I’m not gonna beat my head against the wall, because I think this is a great scheme. If we don’t have the players to be successful and we don’t understand it yet.”
Bobo inherits a team that loses its top three running backs, top receiver and top two tight ends. It does return 11-game starting quarterback Ryan Hilinski and most of last year’s offensive line.
Bobo is a south Georgia guy, He was a star high school recruit playing for his father and then a two-year starter at the University of Georgia, playing a couple years with Muschamp.
He spent all but one year between 1998 and 2014 holding some role with the Bulldogs, rising from administrative assistant to quarterbacks coach and eventually to offensive coordinator. He even went to Colorado State, where his first three teams made bowl games. His final two teams won only seven games, which led to his departure this off-season, and he also battled a rare autoimmune disease, which left him with nerve damage he is still recovering from.
“I’m looking at where I was at the beginning of the season for the middle, the middle to the (end), it’s a lot of improvement,” Bobo said. “I feel really good about it.”
This story was originally published December 16, 2019 at 6:15 PM.
