SOUTH CAROLINA GAMECOCKS FOOTBALL
Mike Bobo’s been a head coach and he’s been an offensive coordinator at some of the highest levels in the sport.
He understands the complex relationship between those two roles.
He knows how much freedom an offensive coordinator wants to operate with. Bobo also knows that what a head coach wants certainly done on that side of the ball, the offensive coordinator has to adhere to.
But, as Bobo gets ready to begin installing his offense at South Carolina, he’s not expecting much interference from head coach Will Muschamp.
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“The accountability is on me, but there’s going to be some things as a head coach you’re going to demand of your program,” Bobo said. “I think that’s going to be being physical and tough. But as far as me worried about coach getting on the headsets and saying run this or run that, I’m not worried about that at all. That’s football. It’s game day and we’re going to be out there coaching. He hired me to do a job. That’s what I’m going to do.”
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Muschamp has his core principles of his program that trickle down to the offensive philosophy, like effort, toughness and discipline, and Bobo expects to install those same philosophies into what he’s bringing to Columbia.
He understands Muschamp will have input and ideas for the offensive game plan, but Bobo said he’s in full control of getting his staff and the players ready to go during the week for game day Saturdays.
“There’s one head coach, and that’s Coach Muschamp,” Bobo said. “We’re going to put together a plan to be successful. I’m the offensive coordinator and he’s trusting me to get our staff ready, on the same page and ready to teach our concepts to our players and go out and execute them on game day.”
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Bobo said in his introductory press conference Monday afternoon that he’s not through watching film on this year’s team, but said he wants a physical team that can run the ball and be balanced offensively.
He spoke specifically about adopting whatever style of play best suits the players on the roster, and that won’t be decided until fall camp in August.
The conversations are already starting, though, between Bobo and the offensive staff about what the current personnel does well and about some of the base concepts of a Bobo offense.
When an offensive coordinator comes in, he has a lot of base plays with personnel groupings and formations changes. They’ll install base concepts in the spring with the goal to get the majority installed before they break for summer workouts.
Bobo also said the Gamecock offensive assistants—Eric Wolford, Bobby Bentley, Thomas Brown and Bryan McClendon—will all have a say in what goes into the Gamecocks’ offensive identity this year.
Right now, Muschamp said he doesn’t anticipate any more staff changes and mentioned they’re still working on McClendon’s official title.
“I’ll have a ton of input,” Bobo said. “We started today going through some base runs right now and getting input on certain things of what they did, how they did it and things I want done. We’ll install I’d say 80 percent in the spring and install the other later. We have to figure out what we want to be a week and a half or two weeks into fall camp.”
Bobo spent almost a decade as the OC at Georgia and was a Broyles Award finalist in 2012.
Between 2007 and 2014, Georgia scored the 17th-most points (3,572) of any school in the country. Over that same timespan, they ranked in the top 25 in yards gained, yards per play, rushing yards and yards per carry.
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