Kirby Smart reveals Georgia players will be suspended, pay fines through collective for traffic arrests
It has been an eventful offseason for the Georgia football program as Kirby Smart has had eight different players get charged for traffic violations, ranging from racing to reckless driving to DUI.
Smart addressed the incidents on Tuesday at SEC Media Days and revealed that suspensions are coming for some of the players involved.
“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,” Kirby Smart said, per DawgsHQ. “We had them last year with the Marcus Rosemy situation. We’ve also had to let guys go based on them.”
Smart declined to reveal details of which Georgia players will be suspended and what games they will miss. However, he made it clear that the off-field issues are troubling and he’s disappointed with them.
“I don’t necessarily think it’s right to go down to the town square and publicly shame kids when that happens. They go through a lot, and there’s a lot of remorse from these young men who made mistakes,” Smart said. “Our job is to educate and continue to grow these young men.
“Everybody wants to know what game and are they suspended. That’s probably not the most important thing in terms of the discipline and culture they’ve got to experience.”
Smart believes that Georgia has the right process in place to avoid off-the-field traffic issues, even though they keep occurring. While he is disappointed in the arrests, he doesn’t plan on changing his methods.
He also defended his program and said that he does not shy away from disciplining players when it is warranted.
“I always talk about process and outcomes. I talk about that in wins and losses, that we try not to base things on the outcomes in wins and losses. In this situation, the outcomes are very disappointing. Our process and the things we’ve put in place, I feel very strongly about,” Smart said. “We do as much or more education than anybody in the country.
“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 got suspended for. 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. Repeated poor behaviors and poor decisions. In some cases we have repeated behaviors. In some cases, we have guys that make mistakes. We’re gonna punish them.”
Smart also announced on Tuesday that Georgia senior defensive back David Daniel-Sisavanh has been dismissed from the team.
In addition to suspensions, he shared that players are being fined by the Classic City Collective for off-field incidents. He knows that the arrests and incidents are an issue and is hopeful that they will become a problem of the past soon.
“We actually write down now every time we talk about it and every time we address it. We have someone in every meeting that hears that. Before I came, there was 162 times that is has been mentioned,” Smart said of driving incidents. “People will say this will fall on deaf ears, you’ve got to have discipline, you have to discipline someone. We have. We will continue to do so. If the actions require that, we’ll do what’s necessary to do that.
“I do think the effective way in curtailing some things is when you go to their wallet and fine them. Because these fines have been substantial. It’ll make you think twice about the mistakes you made.”