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O’Gara: Kirby Smart hasn’t “lost the program” but he’s clearly lost for a solution to Georgia’s driving arrests
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Stop me if you’ve heard this before — multiple Georgia football players were arrested for driving-related offenses.
That was the all-too-familiar headline on Thursday when multiple outlets reported that UGA players Smael Mondon and Bo Hughley were both arrested for separate reckless driving charges. If you’re keeping track at home, that’s now 4 driving-related arrests for the Dawgs this offseason, including Florida transfer Trevor Etienne and wide receiver Sacovie White.
That’s after a 2023 offseason in which UGA players Jamon Dumas-Johnson, Jalen Carter, Marcus Rosemy-Jacksaint, De’Nylon Morrissette and UGA staffer Jarvis Jones were all arrested for driving-related offenses.
With that context alone, that’s a brutal look for a program that’s been the team of the 2020s decade. But with the context that those arrests followed the car crash that tragically took the lives of UGA staffer Chandler LeCroy and offensive lineman Devin Willock, yeah, there’s no other way to spin it.
It’s an incredibly bad look for Kirby Smart and the “this type of thing happens everywhere” excuse doesn’t play.
It’s not fair to say that someone with 39 consecutive regular season wins and just 2 total losses in the last 3 seasons has “lost the program.” What Smart has clearly lost, however, is a solution to put an end to this issue.
Any sort of 1-game suspension or the internal “run until you can’t feel your legs” punishment isn’t working.
It’s not surprising that in the NIL era, wherein car deals are the expectation for big-time programs, that’s a tougher thing for Smart to police than it would’ve been 30 years ago. That doesn’t mean it should be accepted.
To be clear, a call for change isn’t my way of saying that Smart doesn’t care. He’s well aware that his program isn’t handling that issue as well as it can be. Last year at SEC spring meetings in Destin, Smart talked about the discipline of those cases.
“Everybody wants to know what the punishment is. Well, the players know what the punishment is,” Smart said, via Seth Emerson of The Athletic. “And that’s important for our guys to acknowledge that and understand it. But I want to educate further, I want to make sure they understand.”
But what about the culture, you ask?
“Do we have perfect young men and women and players? Not necessarily. But I promise you this, that’s the intent … for us to grow these guys and get them better,” Smart said. “And I feel really good about the culture within our program.”
You can bet on Smart paraphrasing his own 2023 quote when he addresses the media next week at SEC Media Days in Dallas. You can also bet that he’ll be pressed on that issue beyond just a remark in his opening statement. As he should be.
I’d love to know if Smart is using the same internal punishment this offseason that he had last offseason. If so, that’s failing.
It gets messy with enforcing what sort of NIL opportunities can be made available — they aren’t employees just yet — but in a perfect world, Smart would outlaw any future NIL car deals at Georgia. Of course, that would have considerable pushback because it punishes the Georgia players who won’t even get a parking ticket during their time in Athens. It would also put Georgia at a self-enforced recruiting disadvantage to take away that potential incentive. Plus, they’re 18-22 year-old kids. They can get access to cars whether Georgia helps them or not. You can’t stick them all on mopeds and pretend that problem is solved.
Smart should at least consider a more creative solution, though. Maybe in this era of the Playoff, wherein there’s a greater margin for error, Smart will pull an anti-Mike Gundy move and go with a month-long suspension for any sort of arrest. If there’s anybody who has the depth to support such a move, it’s UGA.
It’s not fair to put all the blame on Smart for this because ultimately, players have to be accountable. Free will is still going to get the better of some, no matter how well the message is preached.
It’s also not fair to pretend that Smart is helpless in his position of power. In a post-Nick Saban world, you could make the case that he’s the most powerful presence in college football. He helped set the standard both on the field with its dominance of the sport and off the field with the coaching market. He’s paid too well to say the same message without seeking active solutions to this problem.
Even the most diehard Georgia fan can admit that the driving arrests are a problem. Shoot, UGA AD Josh Brooks admitted a year ago that it was indeed a problem.
“Just like you would as a parent, you want to look at every lever you can pull … there’s disciplinary measures, there’s educational measures,” Brooks said (via DawgNation). “We’re going to look to intensify all of those efforts, because I don’t think it’s just one thing you do.
“There’s discipline, there’s education and there are no shortage of things we will keep doing to rectify this problem.”
Stop me if you’ve heard that before.
Connor O'Gara is the senior national columnist for Saturday Down South. He's a member of the Football Writers Association of America. After spending his entire life living in B1G country, he moved to the South in 2015.
