Kirby Smart opens up on difficulty of tragic loss this offseason, how Georgia football has handled it

The Georgia football team has won back-to-back national championships but has had to deal with arguably even more adversity than the faced winning either of those two titles in the months since.

The tragic deaths of offensive lineman Devin Willock and recruiting staffer Chandler LeCroy in a Jan. 15 wreck rocked the program.

“It’s been one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to deal with,” coach Kirby Smart said Friday in an appearance on the Paul Finebaum Show. “I’ve always told people I’ve never dealt with the loss of a player or staff member in all of the years coaching. That morning when I got that call at 3 a.m., it was one of the toughest times of my career.”

The crash that claimed two lives occurred only hours after the Bulldogs celebrated their second straight national title with a parade and ceremony on campus.

Police indicated the SUV LeCroy was driving — apparently in a race against star defensive tackle Jalen Carter — was going 104 miles per hour when it veered off the road and collided with trees and local utility poles.

LeCroy’s blood alcohol level was .197, more than twice the legal limit.

The loss of the two associated with the Georgia football program has led to some difficult conversations and attempts to process grief in the wake of the tragedy. Georgia has also thought about how it can better educate players on the dangers associated with poor decisions like drinking and driving or racing.

But processing the grief has been a challenge.

“Without Thomas Settles, our team chaplain, Bryant Gantt and all of the members of our community, it’s almost impossible,” Smart said. “The young people don’t understand it any better than a 47-year-old grown man, the loss of life at that age and how quick it can happen. I mean those kids were celebrating at the parade that day and then that happened tragically.”

Willock, who had been with the program for three years, had begun to make a major impact on the field in his redshirt sophomore season for Georgia football in 2022. He played in all 15 of the team’s games, starting at right guard in games against Tennessee and Kentucky.

A promising future wiped out by poor, and ultimately tragic, choices.

“It’s been tough. Our team’s dealt with it well,” Smart said. “We’ve talked about it, you have to talk about things like that to move on from it. And our team has done a really great job talking.”