New era of offense for Georgia football?

Published 3:38 pm Friday, January 17, 2020

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It looks like Georgia is going to be the first team to follow the LSU offensive template.

The Dawgs went out and got transfer quarterback Jamie Newman from Wake Forest. Newman has a cannon arm, is quick on his feet and will bring a ton of experience to the quarterback room at Georgia. The quarterback competition between him, Dwan Mathis and Carson Beck this offseason will sharpen everyone’s skills.

A new development hit the newswire Friday: Georgia has hired former Brown offensive coordinator Todd Monken for the same position in Athens. His hiring reveals to the fans exactly where Kirby Smart wants to take Georgia’s offense. Monken is synonymous with air raid offenses. Everywhere he goes, he has put up big numbers and scored loads of points. From Oklahoma State, to Southern Miss and to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Monken offenses are pedal to the metal. Big chunk plays with a solid run game sprinkled in.

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Fans were not happy with Georgia’s offense under former offensive coordinator James Coley, who is still a crucial part of the coaching staff and will remain with the Bulldogs as assistant head coach. It’s true, the Dawgs left a lot of points on the field in 2019, and perhaps underutilized the players on the roster. There’s a lot of talent there, so struggling to score more than 20 points in a game should not be a problem. But at times it was.

All four teams in the College Football Playoff ran high-scoring offenses with dual threat quarterbacks. The spread-option is simply the way college football is leaning these days. Even Nick Saban, the spitting image of traditional thinking, admitted on national television that he has adjusted his offense to fit the new style. Kirby hadn’t. When the season ended, everyone waited to see if Kirby was serious about making a change. He has made quite a statement with this new hire, and I’m more excited than ever to see where it takes the Georgia offense.