For Kirby Smart, it should have been one of those weeks that coaches love.
Smart arrived at SEC Media Days with a team that has the acknowledged top quarterback in the country, is stocked with elite talent and is likely to be ranked No. 1 in most preseason national polls.
The Dawgs came out of the annual conference media gathering as the projected winner of the SEC championship in what will be the first season played since 1991 with no divisions in the league. Georgia also had 15 players on the preseason All SEC list, six of them on the first team (a league best).
Additionally, despite a schedule aptly described recently by one local sportscaster as gnarly, the Las Vegas oddsmakers have Smart’s Dawgs as the favorite to win another national championship, which would be Georgia’s third in four years.
So, yeah, it should be a great time for Smart.
However, instead of basking in the warm glow of the spotlight that accompanies such expectations, Georgia’s head coach spent a good portion of his time at the annual SEC media extravaganza facing questions about why his players continue to get arrested for street racing, reckless driving and making other “poor decisions,” as the head coach termed it.
Sadly, Smart faced the exact same questions a year earlier, only this time it was worse, because Georgia’s driving problem has intensified lately, with more players running afoul of the guys with blue lights as they scream down the road in the high-performance cars that their name, image and likeness income has made possible. On top of that, some of them have been accused of driving after drinking.
I think it’s a good bet that Smart would love to face no street-racing questions at next year’s SEC Media Days.
Unfortunately, until he figures out a way to convince his players that the streets of Athens and Atlanta aren’t their personal racetrack, that’s not likely to happen.
Of course, Smart is the highest-paid college football coach in the country, with a deal that will pay him $13 million this year, so we shouldn’t feel too bad for him. Still, I don’t envy Smart having to try and get a handle on the combustible combination that is college students, money, fast cars and (sometimes) alcohol.
I know he takes the problem seriously, even though his efforts to combat it over the past year and a half — since Dawg driving violations became tragic front-page news — don’t seem to have accomplished much so far.
Recently, more Bulldogs players have been arrested for reckless driving. These latest charges bring to at least 24 the number of incidents involving Georgia football players or staffers who have been charged for driving-related offenses since a high-speed, alcohol-related accident took the lives of two members of the football program in January 2023.
“The incidents we’ve had off the field are not something that we condone,” Smart said as he addressed the news media at SEC Media Days, adding that the situation was “very unfortunate, disappointing I guess is the best word.”
The problem has gotten so bad that the shorthand on Georgia football has become: great recruiting, championship level program but has a seemingly intractable street-racing problem among its players.
And that’s a disciplinary issue that ultimately reflects poorly on the coaching staff, however unfair that might be. (After all, it’s the players who choose to break the law, and their coaches can’t be monitoring them 24/7.)
What Smart and his staff can do, however, is make the team punishment for such behavior so severe that these young adults will think twice before playing lead-foot with the accelerator.
Really, the problem has become so widespread that it’s starting to color how even hardcore fans view the program. Recently, I was driving on the Stone Mountain Freeway when suddenly a little red sports car zoomed into sight on my right, cut across in front of me and then shot out of sight in the left lane.
The car had to be going at least 120 mph and, I hate it, but the thought popped into my head: “I wonder if that’s a Georgia football player on his way back to Athens.”
It probably wasn’t, and the football Dawgs by no means have a monopoly on too-fast driving or street racing, even within the SEC, where both Alabama and Arkansas have had problems (though nowhere near on the scale of what has happened in Athens).
Still, reckless driving has become something that Smart’s team is known for nationwide.
Making a disciplinary nuisance into a public relations nightmare is the fact that, until this week, Smart mostly tried to keep his efforts to combat the problem behind closed doors — always a bad way to handle something like this when you’re in the public eye, as naturally is the case with the coach of one of the top programs in the country.
“Everybody wants to know what the punishment is,” the coach acknowledged. “Well, the players know what the punishment is, and that’s important for our guys to acknowledge that and understand it.”
Smart talked about the efforts his program has made to get the problem under control, citing 162 instances where the coaching staff has addressed the issue with players. He also noted that he thinks Georgia is the only program in the nation to dismiss a player because of driving violations.
“We’re searching and trying to find the best ways,” Smart said. “I still think the best way is proactive and not reactive. Education, which we’ve done. Defensive driving courses, which we’ve implemented. … Some of this is poor decisions and some of it is poor driving.”
Smart defended his program’s efforts: “Our process and the things we’ve put in place, I feel very strongly about,” he said. “We do as much or more education than anybody in the country. We have discipline in the form of suspensions, and we will continue to do so. We’ll have suspensions coming out of some of these [latest arrests].”
He added: “As far as I know, there’s not one team that has ever suspended a player for a traffic violation. That’s what Marcus Rosemy[-Jacksaint] got suspended for [last season]. I don’t know that anybody has kicked anybody off the team for that, and we have that. We’re going to continue to be proactive. It’s repeated behaviors that will get you dismissed.”
Indeed, UGA announced Tuesday that reserve defensive back David Daniel-Sisavanh, who played in 10 games last year and started against South Carolina, no longer is with the team. The announcement only cited violations of team rules, but the previous week it had been reported that Daniel-Sisavanh was charged with reckless driving after the 2021 BMW M340i he was driving south on the Downtown Connector in Atlanta made multiple lane changes at high speed without using blinkers and led police on a pursuit.
However, Smart said he doesn’t think announcing when players are suspended for driving violations is a good idea. “I don’t necessarily think it is right to go down to the town square and publicly shame kids when that happens.”
I agree with Smart that a public shaming probably isn’t the way to go — mainly, because I don’t think it would achieve much.
Smart also revealed another new wrinkle this week that involves the group of donors who arrange NIL money for Georgia players. “Our Classic City Collective, for over a year, has been substantially fining guys for those things,” Smart said. “That’s something that’s been ongoing outside of my jurisdiction they decided to do, and have done to a considerable amount.
“I do think the effective way in curtailing some things is when you go to their wallet,” Smart said. “You fine them, because these fines have been substantial, and it’ll make you think twice about the mistakes you make.”
And yet, despite those fines having been in place for what Smart said was more than a year, the violations continue to mount, with recent arrests of linebacker Smael Mondon and offensive lineman Bo Hughley in separate driving-related incidents, coming on the heels of transfer running back Trevor Etienne being arrested on multiple charges and wide receiver Sacovie White also facing a reckless driving charge.
What’s the answer? Frankly, I think denying playing time is the coach’s best shot of having an impact on players.
But I’m not sure one game is enough. Judging by the number of violations since Rosemy-Jacksaint served his one-game suspension, that threat obviously hasn’t had the impact I’m sure Smart hoped it would. Perhaps suspensions that last more than one game might be more effective. (DUI cases at UGA already are supposed to carry an automatic suspension of 10 percent of the season, which has been interpreted in the past as 1 game, though perhaps that one needs to be for an even longer period, too.)
And dismissing a player for leading police on an freeway chase is another good step toward getting Smart’s players to take this issue seriously.
It should be made clear to everyone that a repeat offense involving high-speed driving offenses will get a player kicked off the team. Period.
It’s time to make Georgia’s tough-love approach even tougher, because if the current situation is allowed to continue, the odds increase of another tragedy — and perhaps the loss of additional lives.
Overall, Smart is on top of the college football world, running a program that is the envy of most. But this one stubborn problem keeps besmirching the Dawgs’ reputation and brand.
It’s two years running now that Smart has had to spend a portion of his time at SEC Media Days talking about his program’s problem with high-speed driving infractions.
Like I said, I’m sure he hopes that next year he won’t have to talk about it at all. As a UGA alum and fan, I hope that, too.
