On Christmas Day 1997, my buddy Jason Tanenbaum gave me the greatest gift ever.
Tanenbaum and I were best friends in high school before he moved to Athens to attend the University of Georgia. A member of his Tau Epsilon Phi fraternity was a walk-on offensive lineman with the Bulldogs that year, and Tanenbaum asked his brother to get the entire team to sign an autographed football for me as a gift.
I cried when I opened it and immediately purchased a glass case for the football, which still hangs on a shelf in my garage today.
Now and then, I still find myself picking the ball up and staring at those names. I’ve always been drawn to the college football players who played the game when I was in college.
That 1997 Georgia football team went 10-2, its first ten-win season in five years, and beat Wisconsin 33-6 in the Outback Bowl. But the most memorable moment of that season came, as it so often does, in the Cocktail Party against Florida in Jacksonville.
In my opinion, the player of that game was Bainbridge safety Kirby Smart, who picked off the defending national champion Gators three times that afternoon en route to the 37-17 victory. That was the Dawgs’ first win against Florida since Steve Spurrier was named their coach in 1990.
Smart, arguably the greatest coach in Bulldogs history, has his signature at the center of that ball, alongside his teammate in the defensive backfield in future Pro Football Hall of Famer Champ Bailey.
The names on the ball include nine Super Bowl rings, seven NFL all-pro seasons, and two Pro Football Hall of Famers.
Players like defensive end Richard Seymour, running back Patrick Pass, and perhaps my favorite Bulldog ever, wide receiver/running back/quarterback Hines Ward, all have their signatures on that ball and have had outstanding careers in the pro game. Ward was a Super Bowl MVP who will eventually wind up in Canton.
There’s a lot of football history sitting on that ball in my garage, but it’s the signature of the 1997 team’s quarterback in the top left-hand corner, number 14, and a senior that year from Thomasville High School, which brings me to write this piece today.
Quarterback Mike Bobo threw for 2,751 yards with 19 touchdowns and eight interceptions in 1997 and was the key to victory in many of those ten wins. In Georgia’s two losses that season, Bobo’s defenses let him down, giving up a combined 85 points to Tennessee and Auburn.
I bring up Bobo’s defenses letting him down because it’s a common theme moving forward.
In 2007, the former Georgia quarterback was named the school’s offensive coordinator under head coach Mark Richt. Bobo spent eight years as Richt’s OC.
Bobo consistently averaged over 40 points per game and groomed quarterbacks Matthew Stafford and Aaron Murray. In 2014, Bobo called the greatest offensive statistical season in school history and did so with Hudson Mason as his quarterback.
Georgia went 10-3 in 2014. They lost to South Carolina, Florida, and Georgia Tech that season, and their defense gave up an average of 35 points per game in each of those three losses.
So, who’s responsible for those losses in 2014?
A fan of another program might say the Dawgs’ defensive coordinator is to blame. It would blow their minds to realize that the members and fans of the Bulldog Nation actually blame Bobo.
In 2023, Coach Smart brought Bobo back to Athens as the school’s offensive coordinator for the second time, and the vitriol over his hire was unbearable. They called his offense vanilla and couldn’t stand how much Bobo ran the ball up the middle.
What drives me crazy regarding those assertions is just how untrue they were.
Last year, the Bulldog offense ranked first in the SEC in total offensive plays, second in the SEC and fifth nationally in both total offense and scoring offense, and second in the SEC in passing offense.
I will never understand it, and there isn’t enough logic to justify it, but Georgia fans use Bobo as their ultimate scapegoat for losing.
That’s truly sad, and it is no way to treat a University of Georgia graduate who has given everything he has for his alma mater and performed his job magnificently.
Earlier this year, Georgia lost to Alabama 41-34. In that game, Dawgs quarterback Carson Beck set a career-high in passing with 434 yards. Yet, throughout the game, I heard my wife screaming at Mike Bobo for calling a running play.
I asked her if she should direct her anger toward the defensive coaches who gave up 41 points to Bama instead of Bobo.
“I don’t even know our defensive coordinator’s name,” she said. “But I know who Mike Bobo is because he sucks.”
By the way, Georgia’s defensive coordinator is Glenn Shuman, who currently presides over the worst statistical defense of Kirby Smart’s coaching career in 2024.
She wasn’t the only one who felt that way that night, as “Fire Mike Bobo,” chants were simultaneously flooding my social media timeline.
On Monday, following Georgia’s 41-31 struggle win over 1-5 Mississippi State, the Bobo haters were at it again.
Despite Georgia’s defense giving up a 300-yard passer for the second time this season, my accountant LaDonna Harris’s first words were, “What happened to the Dawgs?” “Carson [QB-Beck] just wasn’t right. Mike Bobo sucks.”
As I mentioned earlier, I’m partial to the players who played when I was in college, so when someone goes after Bobo, I’m compelled to scream, “Keep my quarterback’s name out of your mouth!”
Statistically, Mike Bobo is the greatest offensive coordinator in the history of Georgia football. It’s a shame the Bulldog fans cannot appreciate just how well their offense has performed under his leadership.
Patrick Fargason is the Editor/Publisher of The Hartwell Sun, and writes a weekly column.