Bobo & Muschamp: Georgia’s Coordinators are here to Stay

Mike Bobo and Will Muschamp are 84-86 in fourteen seasons combined as head coaches. Muschamp had stops at the University of Florida and South Carolina, while Bobo was previously the head coach at Colorado State University. All three stints ended up in the two coaches being fired.

In contrast, Bobo and Muschamp are 198-61 in 20 seasons combined as coordinators: Bobo on the offensive side of the ball and Muschamp on the defensive side. In their first season together in Athens in 2023, they’re a perfect 11-0 so far.

Bobo spent nine seasons at Georgia as offensive coordinator from 2007-2014 where his record was 86-31 during Mark Richt’s tenure as head coach of the Bulldogs. While Bobo came under a lot of fire for his bland style of play-calling during this period, he seems to have won back the hearts of Bulldog fans this season under head coach Kirby Smart, involving multiple offensive weapons in his scheme.

So far with the Bulldogs, Muschamp is a perfect 26-0 alongside co-defensive coordinator, Glenn Schumann.

While Schumann has yet to be a head coach, he’ll inevitably not be in Athens forever as he’s starting to get a lot of talk around being a head coach somewhere being that he’s been groomed by Nick Saban and Kirby Smart during his time at Alabama, and then again Smart at Georgia.

With that being said, with Bobo and Muschamp having a combined winning percentage of 49% as head coaches and 76% as coordinators, look for them to stay in Athens for the long haul. Typically once a head coach has been fired due to poor performance at a school, it’s difficult for them to get their second chance. Muschamp defied the odds getting one and was fired again. So absolutely expect Muschamp to become a mainstay in Athens, and most likely Bobo as well as he failed to get the job done at a much smaller program with minimal pressure in Colorado State.

Bobo & Muschamp: Georgia’s coordinators are here to stay

This is a good thing for Bulldogs head coach Kirby Smart as a challenge his mentor and rival, Nick Saban, has had at Alabama is keeping his coordinators around in Tuscaloosa. Saban is known for grooming coordinators to get their first, or next, chance as a head coach at the college level. Due to his success as a head coach, teams are always going to poach Saban’s coordinators, and they typically have short tenures under him because of that.

In contrast, the success Dabo Swinney at Clemson had with Brent Venables and Tony Elliott as defensive and offensive coordinators with the Tigers was impressive. Both Elliott and Venables were there for an extended amount of time, unlike Saban’s at Alabama. It arguably helped Clemson to sustain their level of success which they’ve now fallen off of since both departed.

Smart saw this blueprint with Swinney, and hired the pieces he hopes will more than duplicate in Athens. With Bobo and Muschamp already failing as head coaches, this isn’t a problem Smart should have. And one would have to think that Smart intentionally went out and got these two for that exact reason.