Leave no doubt – Kirby Smart is a brilliant coach.
The numbers – back-to-back national championships, seven consecutive New Year’s Six bowl games – speak for themselves. His players train and compete hard and are tough, and dozens of them make it to the NFL. (The graduation rates do leave something to be desired, however.)
Listening to him speak, the care he has for his players and the love he has for Georgia are unquestionable.
Which is why he absolutely must do more to curb his team’s dangerous driving habits, which resurfaced last week with news of additional arrests on charges of reckless driving and racing. It brought to 24 the number of speeding incidents involving members of the Georgia football program, starting with the tragic January 2023 crash that took the lives of recruiting assistant Chandler LeCroy and offensive lineman Devin Willock.
The longer he takes to find the solution, the more likely it is that his players will get arrested again and heap fresh servings of embarrassment upon the university. And, far more gravely, the greater the likelihood that one or more of his players (or heaven forbid, an innocent person) will suffer the most heartbreaking of consequences for their appetites for speed and danger.
On Tuesday at SEC Media Days in Dallas, Smart addressed the continued failure of team members to drive responsibly.
“The incidents that have been happening off the field are not something we condone,” Smart said. “It’s very unfortunate, ‘disappointing’ I guess is the best word.”
Smart enumerated the ways that he has tried to correct behavior. In team environments, players have been addressed 162 times about the dangers of reckless driving and DUI. They have been subject to what he called “substantial fines” from the collective that provides name, image and likeness payments to players.
That’s commendable, and Smart did the right thing to dismiss safety David Daniel-Sisavanh after he was charged with reckless driving on the Downtown Connector and led police on a pursuit in February.
To be sure, Smart and UGA are trying. Sanctions have ranged from dismissal from the team, suspension, reduction of monetary awards (including collective impact), restrictions from games, mental-health treatment, community service and mandated educational programs, executive associate athletic director Steven Drummond shared with The Atlanta Journal-Constitution in a text message Tuesday.
But it’s clearly not working. In July, linebacker Smael Mondon was arrested on charges of driving at least 75 mph in a 40-mph zone near downtown Athens and for racing teammate Demello Jones (who also was charged with racing), and offensive lineman Bo Hughley was arrested in Athens on charges of reckless driving and failure to maintain lane/improper driving following a car accident.
Undeniably, Smart’s challenge is enormous. Like a lot of people their age, surely many Georgia players are flush with feelings of invincibility and struggle to consider the consequences of their actions. Probably more than a few have been coddled and come to believe that not all rules apply to them. They live year-round among teammates and friends who are as overflowing with confidence and competitiveness as they are.
So when they gain access to cars designed to go well in excess of the speed limit through NIL deals (Mondon was driving a 2022 Dodge Charger and Jones a 2021 Porsche Panamera), what has happened in Athens is about what you might expect.
That’s why whether Smart has the team listen to 162 presentations about the dangers of reckless driving or 1,620, it’s not going to register in the way he hopes. Doubtlessly, none of them needed even the first lecture to know that driving recklessly potentially is deadly. And, probably, plenty of them are still living blissfully certain that they won’t be the ones to get caught or cause a wreck, because they haven’t yet.
And, yes, UGA is not the only program wrestling with this danger. But you’d like to think it would be the one that would be the leader in getting it under control.
Could Smart be persuaded to get tougher?
Here are two things that UGA apparently is not doing that it might want to consider: a) implementing a mandatory suspension of at least one game for players charged with driving recklessly; b) requiring players to install speed-monitoring technology for their cars.
First-time offenders of the UGA athletic association’s substance-abuse policy must sit out at least 10% of their season. The policy’s language expresses clearly why reckless driving easily could be included.
Like substance abuse, as the policy states, reckless driving is capable of “leading to personal tragedy, which may include diminished academic and athletic performance, self-injury or injury to others, drug dependence or addiction, legal problems, disastrous financial consequences, and premature death. Substance abuse may also cast a negative image on all student-athletes due to public visibility and the reputation of an academic center of higher education.”
Whether a 1.2-game suspension (10% of a 12-game schedule) should be one games or two is open for debate. After 162 presentations and 24 incidents, this doesn’t seem like the time for leniency. But at least make it one.
To this point, a game suspension is an option that Smart has exercised infrequently.
As for monitoring players’ driving habits, what would have been practically impossible in the days before GPS now can be done by adding an app or installing a monitoring device. Working effectively, it would effectively remove the temptation to drive excessively fast with the expectation of not getting caught.
Players judged to have driven recklessly, whether they were arrested, would be subject to discipline. You could start with taking away players’ keys for the rest of the semester. But a stronger deterrent would be to treat it the same as a guilty verdict, just like a failed random drug test carries the same discipline as one taken (and failed) upon reasonable suspicion – a suspension of one (or two) games.
Discipline would elevate with further infractions.
Would it be intrusive and unfair to players who drive safely? Yes.
Would it be fail-safe? Probably not.
Might it catch enough speeders to jeopardize the outcome of a game? Possibly.
But, given the team’s continued recklessness, would it be more effective than 162 more presentations? I’ll guess yes.
I don’t doubt Smart is committed. However, education, fines and the best intentions of the athletic department don’t seem to be working. If Smart doesn’t figure out a solution, we can only hope that the worst outcome from the next incident is merely feeling disappointed.
