Ty Flournoy-Smith, who was dismissed from UGA after getting into trouble a couple of times, committed to Alabama on Monday night.
Flournoy-Smith played this season at Georgia Military junior college and took an official visit to Alabama last weekend without a scholarship offer. He got a call from Nick Saban on Monday, and tweeted out his commitment to the Crimson Tide.
Flournoy-Smith was dismissed from UGA after getting in trouble twice during his freshman year. He was first arrested for filing a false report of a crime for cashing in text books he had reported as stolen. The last straw was when police were called to a room occupied by Flournoy-Smith and Josh Harvey-Clemons. Neither player was arrested but both admitted to police they smoked marijuana and were disciplined for violating the UGA athletic department's marijuana-use policy.
At Georgia Military this season, Flournoy-Smith caught six passes for 134 yards, including five touchdown passes.
“It was going really good until he broke his foot,” Georgia Military coach Bert Williams told the AJC. “He got rolled up blocking a guy in our third or fourth game. He made it back for the last regular-season game and bowl game. He wasn’t 100-percent but he was out there.
“He did a really good job for us. I would’ve liked to have had him for the whole season. But it was good he came back to show people he was healthy.”
At first, Flournoy-Smith appeared headed to Ole Miss but things didn’t work out.
“Ole Miss had offered him, and he was more or less going to go there,” Williams said. “He liked what they had going on. He was wanting to take a visit to Ole Miss and make sure everything was fine. Then they started hemming and hawing, and it wasn’t going to work. We made a few calls, and Alabama had a high interest level. They had to see how the (scholarship) numbers worked out first.”
Flournoy-Smith impressed Georgia Military’s coaches in his brief stint there. He will graduate after this quarter and be eligible to transfer to Alabama with two seasons of eligibility remaining.
“We haven’t had any problems with Ty,” Williams said. “He has done fine in the Cadet Corps. He has worked hard on the field, and he has done well in the classroom. He came in with a good attitude, and he was really helpful with some of our freshmen guys. He has shown good leadership in helping them get past the freshmen challenges they all deal with. We’ve been very pleased with him. He’s a good young man and will do well.”
What about UGA? When Flournoy-Smith transferred from the Bulldogs, Richt didn’t rule out the possibility of a return.
“I spoke with Georgia about Ty back during the season,” Williams said. “While they would’ve liked to have brought back in, they felt like it was best for him to go somewhere with a fresh start, which is why he was looking for other opportunities.”
Flournoy-Smith played mostly special teams as a freshman at UGA during the 2012 season, and he will have two years of eligibility at Alabama.
