The Todd Monken Effect
For the first time during the Kirby Smart era at the University of Georgia, the Bulldogs will have an offensive coordinator and starting quarterback entering their third straight season together as both Stetson Bennett and Todd Monken elected to return to Athens for another season.
While that may not seem like a significant deal on the surface, a glance back into the past will tell you that Georgia retaining Todd Monken might be the biggest victory they experienced this offseason.
Everything about Monken's history as a coach would tell you that it's not very typical for him to stick around for more than two seasons. Monken has held fourteen different jobs since 1989, and only at five of those jobs he chose to stick around for over two seasons, including Georgia.
When taking a look at Monken's track record as a coach over the years, there are a few things that stick out. The biggest one is that the longer Monken sticks around at a program, the more his team's offensive production continues to increase.
Flashing back to Monken's years at Southern Mississippi (2013-2015), the team Monken started with and finished with were polar opposites. In Monken's first season with the Golden Eagles, his offense averaged just 17.1 points per game. That number jumped all the way up to 39.9 in his third year with the program.
Not only did his team's offensive production as a whole take a massive leap, but so did his quarterback play.
Nick Mullens was Monken's quarterback for all three years at Southern Miss. In Mullens' first season with Monken, he threw for 1,776 yards and 13 touchdowns with a 49.3 completion percentage. The next year, those stats bumped up to 2,470 yards, 12 touchdowns, and a 59.7 completion percentage. In his third year as quarterback, Mullen threw for 4,476 yards, 38 touchdowns and completed 63.5 percent of his passes.
So how does all of this pertain to Georgia? Well, Bennett is the first quarterback that Monken has had for three straight seasons since Mullens. In Bennett's first two seasons working with Monken, he went from passing for 1,179 yards and eight touchdowns with a 55.5 completion percentage to passing for 2,862 yards, 29 touchdowns, and completing 64.5 percent of his passes during this past season.
Georgia also bumped up their offensive production during that time as they averaged 32.3 points per game in 2020 to averaging 38.6 during the 2021 season. See the trend here?
Georgia is now on the verge of entering its third season with Todd Monken as their offensive coordinator, which means the Bulldogs should take yet another step forward in their offensive game, and Stetson Bennett could be poised to have the best season of his career.
The Todd Monken effect is a real thing, and Georgia is becoming a first-hand witness as to just how much the veteran OC can change an offense.
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