Major news today as Georgia announced the addition of Todd Monken to the coaching staff. Monken was named offensive coordinator which means that James Coley is no longer calling plays. Coley has the opportunity to remain on staff though as assistant head coach, and I’m glad to see that. Coley contributed to Georgia’s success over the past couple of seasons and was responsible for recruiting several high-profile members of Georgia’s team, and I think he can continue to have a positive impact in a modified role.(*) Know this – Kirby Smart wants Coley to remain with the program.

Coley’s reassignment does remind us that the staff dynamic is something worth watching in the year(s) ahead. The LSU experiment only worked because Brady and Ensminger meshed and complemented each other well. Georgia’s bringing in two coaches for 2020 with college head coaching experience, and they’re being added to a staff with a reassigned offensive coordinator. That’s a lot of experience and perspective to offer the program, but it’s also an opportunity for pride and egos to clash when several guys are used to calling the shots. You want coaches to challenge and question each other, and passive get-along types usually don’t last long in the pressure cooker environment. It’s easy though for things to get out of hand and factions to form that undermine other assistants or even the head coach.

Kirby Smart has taken on the challenge of managing those personalities because the payoff can be immense. I wrote before the season about Smart growing into the head coaching role – there are still only four SEC coaches who have been at their programs longer. Dealing with staff turnover is part of any head coach’s job, and he’s had to replace several coaches and both coordinators. Some decisions were home runs: Dan Lanning replaced Mel Tucker and produced the #1-rated defense in SP+. Coley’s experience didn’t go as well, but he wasn’t a failure. The Dawgs finished slightly better in 2019 than in 2018, but that’s only part of the story.

The bigger point was this: “if our faith in the new coordinators lies largely in the belief that they’re instruments of Kirby Smart’s preferences, Smart’s own role in decisions deserves greater scrutiny.” That’s been the question ever since it became clear that things weren’t quite right with the offense in 2019. What does Kirby Smart want from an offense? We’ve seen the “manball” perjorative used – not unfairly – but that can’t be all of it. Georgia had explosive and productive offenses with a similar approach in 2017 and 2018. After three years of teams that were great-but-not-great-enough, it was again time to ask what was holding Georgia back. It’s not facilities. It’s no longer recruiting. It’s fair to ask whether the coaching was at the level of players they did so well to bring in. The departure of Scott Fountain gave Smart the opening to evaluate in which areas Georgia came up short. The explosive plays that defined the 2017 and 2018 offenses dwindled in 2019, and one of the most efficient passers to play at Georgia could barely complete 50% of his attempts by the end. Smart recognized the need for change, and Monken definitely represents a different direction.

Todd Monken is a familiar name to longtime college football fans. He grew the Oklahoma State program with Les Miles and made the jump to LSU when Miles did. In a second stint at Oklahoma State, he orchestrated a productive offense with Mike Gundy that went 12-1 in 2011. That offense was #1 in S&P+ in 2011 and #7 in 2012 despite injuries to the top two quarterbacks. That success earned him the head coaching job at Southern Miss where he had to rebuild a shambles of a program. Southern Miss improved from 0-11 in 2012 to 9–5 in 2015 while the offense improved from #117 in S&P+ to #53. He made the jump to the NFL in 2016 and has worked with both Tampa Bay and Cleveland.

Yes, bringing in someone fresh off an unsuccessful NFL job might initially give off “2015 Part II: The Schottening” vibes. Monken isn’t Schottenheimer. He has far more experience in the college game with previous gigs as a college offensive coordinator and head coach and did very well in them. We try to be optimistic about any change, but Schottenheimer took a lot more convincing. Maybe that had to do with the circumstances of the change (Bobo leaving versus Coley being reassigned.) I wrote at the time that “there seems to be a lot more wait-and-see” with Schottenheimer relative to the addition of Jeremy Pruitt as defensive coordinator a year earlier. There doesn’t seem to be nearly as much of that this time, especially among people who have followed the college game closely enough to be familiar with Monken’s work at earlier stops.

Bill Connelly’s 2012 Oklahoma State preview illustrates how Monken attacked defenses with his top-rated 2011 offense:

Monken’s 2011 play-calling was a picture-perfect case study in taking what the defense gives you. Opponents are forming a cloud around Justin Blackmon? That’s fine; we’ll throw to Josh Cooper 15 times. Opponents are selling out to prevent the deep ball? Okay, then we’ll fire quick slants to Blackmon, or we’ll swing the ball from sideline to sideline until they change their tactics. (This was the entire comeback strategy against Texas A&M. Hubert Anyiam, the No. 3 receiver in 2011 until he got hurt, caught 10 of 13 passes for 92 yards versus A&M, and most of that came from snap-and-throw passes to him on the line of scrimmage.) Ignoring the line of scrimmage a bit too much? Then we’ll run, and run, and run, and run.

Not a bad way to run a railroad. Monken will have a similar buffet of options with his Georgia offense beginning with Jamie Newman at quarterback. He’ll have more talent at tailback than he’s used to having on any of his college teams. He’ll be asked to bring along what might be the nation’s best incoming receiver class while getting the most out of George Pickens and the returning group of receivers. Those are a lot of moving parts to get on the same page in a short amount of time, especially with a trip to Tuscaloosa looming in September. Of course it will all ultimately serve Kirby Smart’s preferences, so Georgia won’t be going full Air Raid. Monken won’t be constrained though by the head man in playcalling as he was in Cleveland and even Tampa.

We’re excited that Smart made a change, but that in itself is no guarantee that it will work. Comparisons with LSU’s overhaul will be inevitable, and neither Smart or Monken can let that drive their approach in 2020. Monken was part of a successful OC/HC team with Mike Gundy at Oklahoma State, but he reportedly clashed with Freddie Kitchens in Cleveland. There’s always a risk things could blow up with such sweeping changes to both the roster and offensive coaching staff. We don’t know how well Monken can recruit his side of the ball and how much Georgia will continue to rely on Coley to bring in elite talent. All that said, Monken isn’t a reach. He’s proven at this level and one of the first names you’d consider to help an offense evolve. It will be extremely impressive if he can put all of these new pieces together and show immediate results in 2020.

* – There’s no point in re-litigating Coley’s performance as coordinator in 2019. He’s taking the fall here, but many of us still don’t appreciate the drain of talent at receiver and tight end. Georgia became almost completely reliant on a graduate transfer receiver from Miami (and thank goodness for Lawrence Cager), but this would have been a completely different offense regardless of coordinator with Ridley, Hardman, Nauta, and Ford.