Georgia football wants more explosive plays. How Mike Bobo plans to unlock them

The offseason drumbeat around the Georgia football offense has been all about being more explosive.

Coach Kirby Smart has talked plenty about it. Quarterback Gunner Stockton, the wide receivers, running backs, tight ends and even offensive linemen have weighed in.

The one person we haven’t heard from on the topic is the guy who calls the plays and runs the offense.

Until Wednesday.

Offensive coordinator Mike Bobo emerged for his annual preseason press conference—his first since before the Bulldogs College Football Playoff quarterfinal loss to Ole Miss—and addressed the topic du jour.

“It comes down to a lot of things,” Bobo said Wednesday Aug. 12. “Identifying playmakers that make plays. We call it competitive excellence. When the opportunity presents itself to make a play, make those plays.”

Bobo added other factors include the offensive line needing to protect, Stockton needing to “see things better,” and the offense “being more aggressive at times to push the ball down the field.”

He said “a lot of what we did,” last season was to protect Stockton with calls made as a first-year starter and provide “easy outlets,” to the now departed Zachariah Branch.

A more mature Stockton, he said, will allow Georgia to “evolve as an offense,” and he doesn’t want Stockton to be “so risk-averse you’re afraid to push the ball down the field.”

Bobo said he’s talked to the offense about taking more shots down field.

“You learn what you can and can’t do,” he said.

Georgia posted 58 plays of 20 or more yards last season in Stockton’s first season as starter, down from 69 in 2024 and 85 in 2023, per cfbstats.com. Pass plays of 20 or more yards ranked 56^th with 42, down from eighth with 59 in 2024 and sixth with 65 in 2023.

Smart told the SEC Network he wants more off schedule plays to turn into explosives. He said broken plays when Stockton took off and made a play led to explosive plays.

“There are chances for explosives on broken plays,” Bobo said. “Gunner had a lot of those last year on broken plays where he scrambled and made plays. Sometimes he didn’t get enough space between him and a defender and took some wicked shots. A lot of that is on Gunner.”

Bobo has worked with Stockton on extending plays but being “safer” in and out of the pocket.

Bobo had just come from watching scramble situations with his quarterbacks of NFL film including Buffalo's Josh Allen.

“My quote to those guys is don’t overestimate your abilities,” Bobo said. “You’re not Josh Allen. You can’t make that throw.”

Still, Bobo wants Stockton to take more chances.

“We’ve tried to create more scrambles in practice, and I’ve tried to call more plays where we can push the ball downfield,” Bobo said.

Drew Bobo, Mike’s son, said the offensive line struggled last season in some play-action pass protections

Georgia Tech transfer Isaiah Canion joins a wide receiver corps that includes London Humphreys, Sacovie White-Helton and Talyn Taylor.

Georgia has practiced six times in fall camp and Bobo said while it’s a given that the offense will emphasize running the ball well, it’s still being determined “who we are and the best way for us to move the ball offensively to control the game, to be explosive.”

That includes whether to lean even more on a tight end room that is deep.

“Are we more explosive in this personnel group?” he said.

Bobo, even coming off a year when Georgia won its second straight SEC championship and he was a finalist for the Broyles Award for nation’s top assistant, seems to always have his share of critics.

Smart is not one of them.

“I do think football intuition is one of my strengths, and knowing that, I know we got the right offensive coordinator,” he said last month at SEC Media Days in Tampa, Fla. “What you guys want to write and talk about is completely up to you. I look at the production he's had, the success he had, the team success where he doesn't worry about, he worries about winning football games, and the way he coaches our players day-to-day is unmatched in this country.”

The 52-year old Bobo is sporting a mustache this preseason just like the quarterbacks. It's not part of his plan to become more explosive on offense.

“After camp, I think I’m shaving it,” Bobo said. “They said I’m soft if I was going to go shave it before I was going to come in here today so I didn’t shave it. I thought about it.”

This article originally appeared on Athens Banner-Herald: Georgia football wants more explosive plays. How Mike Bobo plans to unlock them