Kirby Smart’s lost control of Georgia football

Kirby Smart isn’t the only one in the history of college football to have lost the control of their programs.

The first that was acknowledged was Miami, when players seemed to have a season ticket to jail. Florida State managed a few years with Bobby Bowden, and then Florida took it to a whole new level with Urban Meyer – a time that included wildly successful football, drug dealing and AK-47s…alongside White Jesus Himself. Les Miles’ LSU team had their run-ins with the law in moments that included battery and robbery, and Alabama teams of the past certainly had conversations with the police (although nothing quite topped the basketball team and ‘wrong spot, wrong time‘.

Heck, there’s even a cup named “The Fulmer Cup” – ‘The World’s Most Prestigious College Football Award Based on Criminal Record’.

And now, it’s Kirby Smart at Georgia.

A lot of that – like post crimes are in college football – petty. If you really care about one or two kids flying around in Ferraris and Lambourghinis at God Knows Hour and them getting pulled over by Deputy Dirk from the Athens PD, then you really ought to get out more. After all, you’ve done the same, right?

But when it’s 25-30 players getting arrested for exactly the same thing, then it’s important to ask questions.

And it seems everyone had been asking the same question — other than Kirby Smart himself. He said: ““We continue to have guys make poor decisions, you know? It’s very unfortunate,” Smart said after the arrest of Georgia CB Daniel Harris who was booked for doing 106 mph. “I know that our staff, myself, continue to drive home the sensitive nature of it. It’s certainly a deadly speed when you talk about the speed that he was traveling at. You want kids to grow up. You want to treat them like your own kids. You want them to grow up and make good decisions and learn from other’s mistakes. We have guys share, and yeah, we obviously continue to talk to them, but it hasn’t stopped it. We’ve got to find a way to do it.”

NOTHING HAPPENING 

Unfortunately, nothing has been really happening – and this is since the tragic death of Devin Willock and recruiting staffer Chandler LeCroy in a high-speed crash which also involved one of Georgia’s biggest stars in Jalen Carter.

We know this because THIRTY people have been arrested on driving-related offenses. Heck, one of Georgia’s incoming transfers, Trevor Etienne got busted for a DUI and reckless driving BEFORE HIS FIRST GAME AS A GEORGIA BULLDOG (He was suspended for a game).

Of course, the fact that there have been so much pressure on Smart that meant one of the busted drivers – back-up senior DB David Daniel-Sinsavnh – was booted for evading police and causing a police chase (We still think Etienne should have been booted for the DUI, but there we go).

A NASTIER EDGE

The tragic case of January 2023 aside, there has also been some nastier other stuff.

We have made a list of these, just to make it a bit clearer, because it’s frightening.

 

• Ra-Ra Thomas – who came in as a Mississippi State transfer – was booted after being charged and later jailed for “cruelty to children-family violence, a second-degree felony, and two misdemeanor counts of battery-family violence”.
• WR Colbie Young was arrested just over a week ago for “misdemeanor charges of assault on an unborn child and battery”.
• Jamaal Jarrett, who was accused of sexual assault while on a recruiting trip (charges never filed, but he’s now playing for Kirby anyway).
• Georgia LB Adam Anderson was jailed for sexually assaulting TWO women (He plead down to misdemenour sexual assault, which got hidm the lesser sentence that what he deserved, which would have rape).

You have to ask the question: What in the heck’s going on there?

The comparisons to those teams under Urban Meyer are a mite far-fetched.  Meyer’s players got up some really dark stuff, culminating in a felony stalking charge (Chris Rainey, which ultimately he was let back on the team for), and a player firing off an AK-47 in an effort to scare someone in 2007 (Meyer let him off). Drug possession was rife, but battery was the most popular, which some players got away with, and others did not.

Those players arrested under Kirby Smart’s charge aren’t machine-gun violent. But they are violent towards women, drive like crazy people, and already have a couple of deceased names on Smart’s team resume.

Smart needs to sort this out, and he needs to do something NOW.