Wearing the same tan golf shirt and slacks he was arrested in the night before, former Georgia Tech quarterback Joe Hamilton professed his innocence Tuesday evening in the Fulton County Jail.

But he says he's sorry.

"I apologize to the Georgia Tech community and my family," Hamilton, 31, said while sitting in a small courtroom inside the jail, moments after a bond hearing. "For the confusion and commotion — the negative spotlight."

Hamilton, who led Georgia Tech to an ACC football championship in 1998, was arrested early Tuesday during a traffic stop on Tech's campus, about a week after getting hired by his former team.

He is facing charges of marijuana possession, driving under the influence of alcohol, hit-and-run and open container, according to a Georgia Tech police report.

Hamilton's arrest is the second incident in less than a month that involved allegations of drugs and Georgia Tech's athletics program. Junior baseball player Michael Hutts was found dead April 11 from a drug overdose amid reports that he used heroin. A toxicology report showed Hutts, 21, died from morphine toxicity, but authorities are still investigating what drugs he took.

If Hamilton is a drug user, his new employer wouldn't have known. Georgia Tech gives its departments discretion whether or not to drug test new hires, and the athletics department does not.

Hamilton, the one-time Heisman Trophy runner-up, was pulled over shortly after midnight by a Georgia Tech police officer because his black Ford Expedition matched the description of a car that had been involved in a hit-and-run collision nearby.

Officers smelled alcohol on Hamilton's breath, and asked him if he had been drinking and involved in an accident. Hamilton admitted that he had a few beers and that he hit another motorist from behind, according to the report.

Hamilton failed a series of field sobriety tests, including walking in a straight line and standing on one leg, the report states.

"He was unsteady on his feet while doing the exercise, and he was losing his balance during the evaluation," an officer wrote of Hamilton trying to walk in a straight line.

Hamilton also agreed to take a breath test that measured his blood-alcohol content. In two attempts, he recorded levels of 0.193 and 0.199, the document said, more than twice the state's legal limit of 0.08.

In Hamilton's car, police found an open bottle of Heineken beer on the floor board behind a passenger seat and a marijuana cigarette in the ash tray, the report said.

The hit-and-run collision, meanwhile, occurred at Williams Street and North Avenue. The other motorist, Charles Curry Jr. of Decatur, told police he was stopped at a red light on Williams when another motorist rear-ended him.

Curry motioned for the other motorist to pull into a nearby parking lot but the motorist drove off, he told police.

Hamilton told police that he "tried to wait on them [the other motorist] but it took the victim too long to arrive," the report said.

Nicole Butler, 24, of Smyrna witnessed the wreck. She said she had been driving behind the Expedition for four or five miles on Interstate-75. The Expedition was swerving and nearly hit a roadside barrier, she said.

"It scared the mess out of me because I was behind him," Butler said.

She and the motorist both took the same exit. Once the Expedition rear-ended Curry's car, the driver "kind of paused for a minute, and then he went ahead and sped off," Butler said.

Butler, however, had already memorized the driver's license plate number, which matched Hamilton's, the report said.

Hamilton's car had white paint on its front bumper — the same color of Curry's car, which had a dent in the rear bumper, the report said.

Tech athletics director Dan Radakovich issued this statement:

"The matter is under investigation, and appropriate action will be taken upon completion of the investigation."

Hamilton received his history, technology and society degree from Tech last August. Since graduating, he has been a personality on Tech's pre-game radio show. He also provided color commentary on the game replays on CSS-TV.

The 5-foot-10-inch quarterback played for Tech from 1996 to 1999. He led the team to an ACC championship in 1998, and finished second in the Heisman Trophy race the next year. He moved on to play in the NFL and the Arena Football League.

Hamilton joined the Tech staff on April 28 as the assistant director of player personnel. His duties include assisting with recruiting and helping the players.

Authorities continue to investigate the death of Hutts, whose body was found in his off-campus apartment. The Fulton County Medical Examiner's office has ordered urinalysis to clear up ambiguities that emerged from blood tests late last week.

Dr. Geoffrey Smith, a forensic pathologist overseeing the Hutts case, said Tuesday that toxicology tests did not detect a substance typically created by heroin use. Heroin metabolizes into morphine, a strong narcotic.

The toxicology found no other drugs in Hutts' system, Smith said. If Hutts did not take heroin, Smith said, he most likely died from a morphine overdose. Morphine is rarely prescribed for use outside hospitals, except for terminally ill cancer patients.

Despite the inconclusive toxicology, Smith said Hutts' case is unusual only because of his notoriety as a college athlete.

"Unfortunately," he said, "I have seen a good number of cases in the last little while involving people from a wide variety of backgrounds."

Dr. Randy Hanzlick, Fulton County's chief medical examiner, said his office investigates more than 100 deaths a year caused by accidental overdoses of illicit drugs and prescription medications. Statewide, a database of vital records shows a total of more than 2,200 fatal overdoses from 1999 through 2006 — an average of about 280 a year.

Because authorities consider Hutts' death to be accidental, the Atlanta police do not plan to investigate where he got the drugs that killed him.

"The thing is, what are you going to do when you find the source of the drugs?" said Officer Eric Schwartz, a police spokesman. "The victim is the one who ingested it or whatever. You can't charge the person. There's no criminal act."