On Monday night, Georgia offensive coordinator Todd Monken will take his seat in the press box to coach the Bulldogs’ offense in the College Football Playoff National Championship game against Alabama. Monken’s path to Georgia has been windy and unpredictable. However, the coach said he feels like coming to Georgia was a no-brainer.

“You want to be at a place where you have no barriers to success, and that starts with being able to get great football players, working with a great staff, an elite academic institution and being right down the road from Atlanta,” Monken said. “So, when you’re recruiting players and their families, we check all the boxes. You want to be a place where you check all the boxes.”

Before accepting the offensive coordinator position at Georgia in January of 2020, Monken had a long history of coaching positions.

After finishing his time as quarterback at Knox College in 1989, Monken started his coaching career that same year as a graduate assistant at Grand Valley State. He later bounced between colleges including Notre Dame, Oklahoma State, LSU and more.

Following his stint as the passing game coordinator at LSU, Monken found his way to the NFL for the first time. He became the wide receiver coach for the Jacksonville Jaguars in 2007, a position he stayed in for four years.

His stint in Jacksonville eventually led him to an offensive coordinator job at Oklahoma State, and then a head coaching position at Southern Miss. However, it wasn’t long before Monken found himself in the NFL again. First as the offensive coordinator of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, and then for the Cleveland Browns.

Finally, on January 17, 2020, Monken took the job as Georgia’s offensive coordinator and now has his offense in position to win college football’s top prize. Monken said his decision to join the Bulldogs was based on how the program looked now, and a 40-year championship drought did not stand in the way.

“In a lot of ways, that [the championship drought] didn’t factor into it because I knew what the place was like now,” Monken said. “And I knew the success that they had and were awfully close in previous years to that.”

This season, Monken and the Georgia offense have been explosive and in many instances, have been overshadowed by the Bulldogs’ elite defense.

Georgia’s offense currently sits at ninth in the country in points per game, averaging 38.8 through 14 games this year. Monken also has boosted Georgia’s passing offense, adding the ability to throw the ball down the field. Georgia currently sits second in the Power 5 in yards per completion, averaging 14.39 yards per catch this season after averaging 14.04 yards last year.

Running back James Cook said the coordinator’s success comes from his constant expectation of perfection, a quality Cook believes comes from the NFL.

“He wants all the little details right,” Cook said. “So that’s what’s kind of different about him because he was in the NFL, and they do things a little different. So, it’s just about the little details and things like that.”

Printed with permission from the Red & Black independent student media organization based in Athens, Georgia; redandblack.com/sports