Starting Georgia football defensive lineman arrested on criminal trespass charges

Georgia football senior defensive lineman Devonte Wyatt was arrested at 11:35 p.m. on Tuesday night by the Clarke County Sheriff’s Office on charges of criminal trespass, damage to property and family violence.

The Athens-Clarke County jail booking report indicated the charges are of the misdemeanor variety, and Wyatt remained incarcerated at the time of this writing.

Wyatt’s bond is set at $1,500, per the report.

It’s the first public arrest of the new year for Coach Kirby Smart’s football team, which is expected to compete for a championship in 2020.

Smart issued a statement on Wednesday morning:

“I’m disappointed in the misconduct that is outlined in the incident report. This is not indicative of the behavior we expect from our student-athletes who represent the University of Georgia and our football program. We will address it internally in the appropriate way.”

Wyatt is part of a defense considered among the best in the nation, returning nine starters off a unit that throttled Baylor in the Sugar Bowl, 26-14.

Wyatt, who played in 13 of the 14 games and was second on the team with 19 QB pressures last season, was among those nine returning starters.

The Bulldogs could be lacking leadership in the locker room once again, a seemingly recurring issue for Smart’s Georgia teams the past couple of years.

Permanent captains Jake Fromm, D’Andre Swift, Andrew Thomas and J.R. Reed have all moved on. There is no clear indication who will assume leadership roles.

It was an issue for Georgia last offseason, as well.

Six players were arrested over a six-week span last spring, drawing national headlines.

Smart took the blame, saying last spring: “I’ve obviously done a poor job with this group of connecting and making sure they listen and understand thing.”

Four of the six players who were arrested last offseason are no longer with the team.

Smart took harsh measures to stem the arrest trend that emerged last spring, making players run stadium steps in front of a crowd of boosters during a closed scrimmage.

Another player, receiver J.J. Holloman, was dismissed after spring drills for a violation of team rules related to a domestic incident.

The Bulldogs are expected to start spring drills in mid-March leading up to the annual G-Day Game on April 18.

DawgNation has requested an incident report from the authorities and will provide updated stories and information as they become available.