Field Street Forum

Georgia Offensive Coordinator Todd Monken offered the following comments Tuesday afternoon.

On where he starts when designing a new offense and combining Coach Smart’s goals and the direction he wants to go to launch his offense…
“First off, being three different places the last five years there’s a number of things that we’ve done in the past, So, you start with what you’ve done recently, and then what you’ve done the last few years that you liked and want to carry over. Obviously, the games are different, the NFL compared to college football, there’s different various or, you know, of what you want to accomplish from a tempo standpoint, from a personnel standpoint. But, we are still in the process of building that. We went through the spring and did that—then the summer and we’re continuing to work on that as we speak.”

On what he and Coach Smart envisioned UGA’s offense to look like once he joined the staff…
“Scoring points and not turning it over. I know that’s really simple, but obviously that’s—when we spoke about his vision of the offense, was certainly what I think every coach wants, which is take advantage of your personnel, the players that you can recruit here at the University of Georgia, doing a great job in terms of utilizing those people, putting them in the best position to be successful. Obviously, as coaches we are paid to maximize our players measurable skill sets, so that’s probably the first and foremost—the talent that we get here is finding a way every day to develop those players, and then utilize their skill set to the best of their ability. Obviously, the most important part is moving the football and scoring points, whether that’s running the football or throwing the football. Being explosive and not turning it over—it’s a pretty simple game.”

On whether he feels he has brought any concepts of NFL offense back to the collegiate level/his thoughts on the changes over time between the two levels…
“Well Seth, you’re right. You definitely see changes in the NFL in terms of spreading the field out, athletic quarterbacks, RPOs—that has changed, dramatically. The bottom line is as high school started doing more of that and then colleges did, then the players you are drafting—when you’re drafting certain players that’s what they’re accustomed to doing at quarterback. They’re more comfortable in [shot] gun—more comfortable with that style of system, trying to keep it as simple as you can. Obviously, it’s very difficult, the NFL level against the best in the world just like in this league. So there’s obviously things that we will take from a number of places I have been over the last 10 years, from Oklahoma State to Southern Miss, to the last couple of stops I’ve been in the NFL. There’s a number of things that I liked—the things I’ve done in the past and things that other people did. So, that’s really what you do. You put together what you think is the best way to move the football and score points.”

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