Mike Bobo says he has noth­ing to hide from his days as the Col­orado State head foot­ball coach.

Now the South Car­oli­na offen­sive coor­di­na­tor, Bobo for the first time Thurs­day addressed alle­ga­tions he mis­treat­ed play­ers and was racial­ly insen­si­tive dur­ing a vir­tu­al news con­fer­ence Thursday.

“I take offense that any­body as a mem­ber of our team or coach­ing staff or sup­port staff that they were treat­ed racial­ly insen­si­tive or there might have been abuse,” Bobo told reporters.

Alle­ga­tions against Bobo and CSU’s ath­let­ics staff sur­faced in a report recent­ly pub­lished by the Fort Collins Col­oradoan. CSU ath­let­ic direc­tor Joe Park­er announced the foot­ball pro­gram would be paused while an inde­pen­dent inves­ti­ga­tion looks into the accusations.

In the wake of the report, South Car­oli­na ath­let­ic direc­tor Ray Tan­ner said his depart­ment would look into the claims. Bobo wait­ed until Thurs­day to address them on his own, “out of respect to Coach Tan­ner and their inquiry,”

Here’s a full state­ment from Bobo:

“As far as me and my fam­i­ly, it’s been a dif­fi­cult time because of who I am and how I treat peo­ple,” Bobo said. “At the same time, I’ve been very grate­ful of the sup­port that I’ve received from fam­i­ly, friends, for­mer play­ers, for­mer team­mates, guys that I’ve coached, par­ents, and guardians. It has been over­whelm­ing. I just want to say thanks to those peo­ple and I love them.

“Per­son­al­ly, one thing that it has made me real­ize is it’s made me want to be a bet­ter per­son, bet­ter father, bet­ter hus­band, bet­ter broth­er, bet­ter team­mate, a bet­ter friend. When you read those things you real­ized you’ve done some good things, but you can do bet­ter. In regard­ing this issue I’ve met with Coach Tan­ner and part of his admin­is­tra­tive staff about this short­ly after the arti­cle came up. I was com­plete­ly trans­par­ent and hon­est about every ques­tion that came my way. I have noth­ing to hide. I under­stand Coach talked with sev­er­al play­ers on our foot­ball team and talked to some peo­ple at Col­orado State.

“Again, I’ve been com­plete­ly trans­par­ent and have noth­ing to hide in the ongo­ing inves­ti­ga­tion that Coach has put forth. In say­ing all of that, I want to say I’m not per­fect. I’ve nev­er claimed to be per­fect. I’ve nev­er claimed to be a guy that has the answers to every­thing. I loved my time at Col­orado State. My fam­i­ly loved our time at Col­orado State. It’s a bot­tom-line busi­ness and we didn’t win enough games. I wish I could go back and change some of the things and deci­sions I made as a head coach to help us win some more games and do the job I came to do with my staff.

“At the same time, I take offense that any­body as a mem­ber of our team or coach­ing staff or sup­port staff that they were treat­ed racial­ly insen­si­tive or there might have been abuse. One thing I can say is that we were a fam­i­ly and loved each oth­er. I can hon­est­ly say I treat­ed peo­ple the way I would like them to treat my child; hold them account­able and hold them to a high stan­dard and love them. In say­ing all of that, I’m excit­ed about being here at South Car­oli­na. I appre­ci­ate the sup­port from Coach Tan­ner and the admin­is­tra­tion and Will dur­ing this time. We’ve been on the prac­tice field for two days now and we’re start­ing to find an iden­ti­ty with this offense as we move for­ward to get ready to play Ten­nessee. As far as that, that’s going to be my com­ments on that situation.”

Game­cocks head coach Will Muschamp came to Bobo’s defense ear­li­er this week, dis­miss­ing the alle­ga­tions out of hand.

“Those claims to me are com­plete­ly absurd,” Muschamp told reporters Mon­day. “I’ve known Mike since 1993. He doesn’t have a racist bone in his body. That’s real­ly all I’ll com­ment at this time. I look for­ward to com­ment­ing fur­ther, but I don’t want o give the arti­cle any more cred­i­bil­i­ty because it doesn’t deserve any.”