Bobo, coordinators go way back
fort collins» It’s part of college football networking. The upwardly mobile assistant says something like: “If I ever get a head coaching job, you’re coming with me.” Or, perhaps, “You’re the first guy I’ll call.”
That’s roughly how it worked with new Colorado State coach Mike Bobo, who came to Fort Collins after 14 seasons on the Georgia staff.
When hired by Bobo, Will Friend was Georgia’s offensive line coach and running game coordinator and Tyson Summers was the defensive coordinator at Central Florida. The common thread is that both got their college coaching starts as graduate assistants, working on the Georgia staff with
Bobo, before moving on to full-time jobs.
Friend made stops at Gardner-Webb and the University of Alabama at Birmingham before going back to Georgia, and he got a promotion in title with the Rams — he’s officially the offensive coordinator and offensive line coach — but his on-field duties mostly are with the line, and Bobo will call the plays.
Bobo has empowered Friend to be the voice of the offense when Bobo isn’t in the meeting room, but it’s still enough of a lateral move in responsibility that it’s hard to believe Friend would have accepted the job if it weren’t for his friendship with Bobo.
The friendship began when Friend was a Georgia grad assistant from 2003-04.
“We were both young — Coach (Bobo) was a young full-time coach and we’re the same age,” Friend said at the Rams’ media day Monday. “The rest of the staff was a little older and we kind of built a good rela- tionship.”
Friend noted that when Bulldogs offensive line coach Stacy Searels left to go to Texas in 2011, Bobo lobbied for Mark Richt to hire Friend. “Mike stood on the table because he felt like he knew what we could do together,” Friend said. He got the job.
Bobo noted that when Friend returned, the friendship “kind of took off.” He said that as he was on an elevator, on his way to interview with CSU president Tony Frank in Las Vegas in December, he called Friend and asked: “Are you on board or not?”
Said Friend: “Not only were we close and our families were close, but professionally he stood up for me to give me a chance and there was no way I wasn’t coming to help him in his first chance to be a head football coach. ... I know a lot of times the head coach is the play-caller, and I think he’s the best play-caller in the business. If I’m going to have the title of offensive coordinator, I want the guy that’s the best play-caller in the country calling plays.”
Summers succeeded Friend as a Georgia grad assistant in 2005, and his career path took him to Central Florida in 2007; he was the defensive coordinator last season. He said he came across Bobo in recruiting.
“I still had an opportunity to communicate and talk football, and talk about recruiting and philosophies and different ideas,” Summers said. “As soon as I got the opportunity to come here and be with him, it’s where I wanted to be.”