Kirby Smart isn’t backing away from the kind of offense he wants at Georgia, and that means Mike Bobo may be headed for even more criticism from fans who already wanted something different.
During Georgia’s first practice of fall camp, Smart made it clear he wants the Bulldogs to lean harder into the run game. That’s the opposite of what plenty of fans have been asking for all offseason.
They’ve wanted Bobo to run less and open things up more. Smart sees it another way.
“I would say we are coming off a year that we were subpar at that (running the football), when we really tried to drive that home. We're not going to ever get away from that," Kirby Smart said via georgiadogs.com.
"We have to be able to run the football. Show me a good team that wins championships that can't run the football.
I mean, it just doesn't happen. You look at the national champions the last five, six years.
They're effective at running the football and stopping the run. It's one of the leading statistics over the last 10 to 15 years in national championship teams."
That’s the core of Smart’s thinking: Georgia didn’t run it well enough last year, and he believes that was a major reason the Bulldogs didn’t make a deep playoff run. For him, the answer isn’t to pull back from the ground game. It’s to double down on it.
That stance could leave fans frustrated all over again. One of the loudest complaints about Bobo is that his offense feels too easy to predict, with drives that too often start the same way and settle into runs up the middle before Georgia finally throws on a later down.
Fans want more variety. Smart wants more efficiency on the ground.
There’s a football logic to it, of course. A strong run game can grind down a defense and force defensive backs to creep closer to the line, which then opens up passing lanes. Smart clearly thinks Georgia wasn’t good enough there last season, so he wants that part of the offense emphasized even more now.
For the fans already convinced Bobo leans on the run too much, that sounds like bad news. If Smart gets the style of offense he wants, the complaints about predictability could get louder, not quieter.
Still, Smart has earned a level of trust that most coaches never get. In 10 years at Georgia, he has won four conference championships and two national titles. That matters when he’s setting the tone for what the offense should look like.
Bobo’s résumé with Georgia is where the frustration comes in. Many fans have held onto the fact that he hasn’t won a national championship in either of his stints with the program, and that has fueled a lot of the anger toward his play calling. Some supporters see this season as his last shot to win them over.
But Bobo doesn’t need to win over everyone. He needs Smart’s trust, and he already has it. Smart extended his contract through the 2028 season this offseason.
And while the fan base may not love the style, the numbers don’t paint a disaster. Over the last five years, Georgia’s offense ranks No. 2 in the country in explosive plays. Last season, the Bulldogs were No. 28 nationally in scoring at 32.1 points per game.
That may not satisfy everyone who wants a more aggressive offense, but it’s still production. Smart’s push to run the ball more probably won’t make Bobo any more popular with the critics. If anything, it could make the divide even sharper.
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