Georgia head coach Kirby Smart went to the professional ranks to find his next offensive coordinator.
After allowing longtime assistant James Coley a year to run Georgia’s offense, it was evident that Smart had made the wrong decision and took little time to make a change.
Smart demoted Coley and brought in Todd Monken to call the plays for Georgia’s offense.
Monken came to Georgia after serving as offensive coordinator for the Cleveland Browns. Monken is well-known for his successful air attack offenses that he’s orchestrated over the years.
By the time Monken stepped foot in Athens, Georgia, most of the heavy lifting had already been done as far as recruiting goes.
But for a new face to step into the picture that late in the recruiting process can be a scary sight for young prospects and their parents.
However, Monken and Smart handled the situation smoothly, not allowing Coley’s departure to have a negative impact on recruiting.
In fact, Monken helped Georgia to land the nation’s No. 1 overall recruiting class for 2020.
“We’re excited about what Todd brings to us. As far as the recruiting process, he got involved in most of these late,” Smart said. “Most of the work hadKirby Smart on what Todd Monken brings to Georgia’s offense, recruiting been done on a lot of these guys. If you think about it, I think all of our wideouts signed early, so that was not a major factor in this recruiting class.”
Smart also commented on his previous relationship with Monken, however, pointed out that he would prefer to talk about the new signees.
“We really want this to be about our signing class, but Coach Monken and I crossed paths at LSU. He came in with Les Miles’ staff, and I was there for a month, or three or four weeks, before I came here. So, we were briefly on the same staff. We’ve crossed paths through our time at speaking engagements, recruiting on the road, the Southern Miss job, lot of interactions in different ways.”
When asked about what we should expect from Georgia’s new-look offense in 2020, Smart sounds just excited to figure out as we do. But right now, he would not give us much information regarding that.
“I don’t know the answer to that. The roles on our staff still aren’t complete with an assistant coach spot open. I think that will play out as we go along. Certainly, I’m excited. I know the kids are excited for an opportunity and looking to see where that goes. I can’t honestly say right now. I think everybody wants to hear some grand speech opening this up and doing that. What you need is to be productive offensively, score points, and do explosive plays, which we talk about consistently.”