MIRAMAR BEACH — Georgia has obvious questions to address with well-documented off-season driving-related issues and key roster turnover.
Kirby Smart, however, sounded confident the Bulldogs will have their house in order even as some on the outside point out team chemistry is a potential challenge.
ESPN analyst Kirk Herbstreit recently pointed out what Smart also has said, that each team has a different chemistry about it.
“He’ll have a team, as always, the way they recruit,” Herbstreit said in an interview with On3. “But will it come together to make a run to get all the way to the end?
“The chemistry has to come together, which they’ve had for two straight years …”
Smart, to that end, said he’s working to educate his team after two of the returning multiple-game captains, Jamon Dumas-Johnson and Marcus Rosemy-Jacksaint, were arrested for driving-related offenses.
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“No one is more embarrassed than Marcus Rosemy-Jacksaint and his parents, they’re crushed,” Smart said before lumping in another receiver who was arrested on a driving-related charge.
“But Marcus has to learn from this, so does De’Nylon (Morrissette).”
Smart said it’s all about educating the player to avoid these types of mistakes.
“Education is the first thing, because everybody wants to know what the punishment is, (but) players know what the punishment is and that’s important for our players to acknowledge and understand,” Smart said during his presentation at the SEC Spring Meetings on Tuesday.
“Part of being an 18-19-year old young man, a 20-year-old young man is learning from mistakes,” Smart said. “I was that age once, too. We don’t condone anything. They’ve got to do a good job of making good decisions off the field and we’ve got a lot more education things lined up about that.
“But it’s not just about that, it’s about everything that they can get into as far as gambling, drugs and alcohol and treatment of the opposite sex.”