Kirby Smart addresses recent Georgia player arrests

Since winning the national championship in early January, there have been a string of arrests in the Georgia program. A couple have been from players moving onto the NFL (Jalen Carter, Stetson Bennett) but there have been some for players who are expected to return for the 2023 season.

No specific punishments have come out from head coach Kirby Smart. Before getting to that point, Smart is looking to educate his players on why what they did was wrong. Punishment is just part of the equation to him but will not fully help them learn.

“I think the education piece is the first thing,” Smart said. “Everybody wants to know what their punishment is. Well, the players know what their punishment is. That’s important for our guys to acknowledge it and understand it. But I want to educate further, want to make sure they understand.”

Smart then discussed two specific players, talking about Marcus Rosemy-Jacksaint and De’Nylon Morriessette. Both were arrested over the past month, with Rosemy-Jacksaint being charged with reckless driving and Morriesstte having a DUI charge. To this point, there has not been too much more information released.

While making sure to state Georgia does not condone any of their actions, Smart understands mistakes are made. A lot of people make them throughout their college days. He then emphasized being able to learn from those mistakes through education.

“Nobody is more embarrassed… Marcus Rosemy and his parents — oh my gosh. They’re just crushed,” Smart said. “But, Marcus has to learn from this and so does De’Nylon (Morrissette). Part of being an 18-year-old man, a 19-year-old man, a 20-year-old young man is you have to learn from your mistakes. I was that age once too. We don’t condone anything. They got to do a good job at making good decisions off the field.”

Georgia has steps in place to help educate their players. Smart has always brought in guest speakers to speak in front of the team but in light of recent events, the topics and amount of speakers have been expanded.

“We’ve got a lot more education things lined up to come but it’s not just about that,” Smart said. “It’s about everything they can get into in terms of gambling… drugs and alcohol, treatment of the opposite sex. We have a ton of speakers during our summer circuit program. We’ve ramped that up but do all we can to curtail.”