So the column for this space was written and all ready to go.
It talked about this season’s prospects for Georgia, Georgia Tech, Georgia Southern and Fort Valley State.
Georgia, Georgia Tech and Georgia Southern all open their seasons at home Saturday while Fort Valley State plays its first home game after winning its season opener last week on the road. The Wildcats are off to a strong start and could be headed toward a terrific season, while it’s hard to know what to expect from Georgia Southern in Jeff Monken’s first season.
As for Georgia and Georgia Tech? Well, that’s where the column had to change after news of yet another arrest of a Georgia football player.
The original column talked about how Georgia and Georgia Tech are going to have strong seasons, win their respective divisions in their conferences and play in their conference championship games. For the record, Friday’s news doesn’t change my opinion on any of that.
It was a good column, and it would have been nice for you to read it because it made a lot of good points.
Instead, the focus turns to a program that appears to be on the edge of being out of control.
Georgia certainly has some question marks on the field with a new quarterback and a new defense this season. But the biggest questions should focus on all the arrests the Bulldogs have had within their program this year.
The latest came Friday morning as new broke about a warrant that was issued by UGA Police for freshman safety Alec Ogletree on a charge of “theft by taking.” Ogletree was one of the few true freshmen expected to play in the season opener and could still have a big impact on the program, but he has just become another statistic for the Bulldogs. And it’s not a good one.
The news about Ogletree came a week after tailback Washaun Ealey became the eighth Georgia football player to be arrested this year. Eight plus one equals nine, and that’s just way too many arrests for a program in one year.
Georgia head coach Mark Richt is a terrific coach and he’s as good a representative of the university that Georgia has had in his current position, but his program is headed down the wrong path. And he needs to do something about it.
It’s almost impossible to expect a college football coach to keep every player in the program under control. For a program like Georgia, there are typically more than 100, after all. Things are going to happen when 18- to 22-year-olds are on a college campus, but Georgia’s problems have become so numerous that they can’t be just shrugged away with a thought that these are just college athletes doing what college athletes do.
These athletes are representing the university, not just on Saturday afternoons, but with everything they do. And it seems some of them don’t get it. If they don’t, they need to be dismissed from the program and made an example of. Maybe that’s the only thing that will work and show the rest of the players that Richt means business.
And Richt needs to show he means business instead of being so lenient. That was the policy taken by his mentor Bobby Bowden, who let his Florida State Seminoles get away with so much off-field stuff while at the same time talking up his religion and character that it was laughable. The Georgia program has followed that same trend the past few years, and it’s troubling to say the least.
Richt is getting talented players, for sure, but he may not be getting the right kind of character individuals on the Athens campus. That is something he needs to look at and focus on.
All colleges have these problems, and they seem to go in cycles. But Georgia has had more than its share of them in the past few years, and Richt needs to address it now.
Contact Daniel Shirley at 744-4227 or dshirley@macon.com
