Kirby Smart, Georgia football program need to heed warning signs before it's too late

It is easy to identify the exact moment you have lost Kirby Smart’s attention. At a certain point, his eyes just shoot off into the distance, as if the rest of the world around him has disappeared and his brain is telling the rest of his body that he should be somewhere else, thinking about something that helps him win a football game rather than whatever it is he’s obligated to do in that second the switch flips.

And it usually doesn’t take long.

That quality is probably among the many reasons why Smart has transformed Georgia into college football’s preeminent program, winner of the last two national championships and poised to add more in the coming years.

But a recent batch of reporting from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution about the way Smart and the Georgia program handle disciplinary issues has revealed a potential vulnerability that we have seen fester inside multiple would-be dynasties that eventually fell.

The issues raised in Wednesday’s piece are serious enough on their own that Smart would be foolish to try to brush away with smugness.

The Journal-Constitution found that 11 players during Smart’s seven seasons as head coach had been retained in the program after women had made abuse allegations against them to either local police or the university. The report included new details about specific incidents, including one in 2022 in which a recruit wound up under investigation for sexual assault during a visit after breaking curfew and getting drunk as a 16-year-old. That player, defensive tackle Jamaal Jarrett, was not charged and is set to play for Georgia as a freshman this fall.

In another instance, the newspaper found, Georgia staffer Bryant Gantt was in the room in 2021 when police interviewed former Bulldogs receiver George Pickens about an allegation of sexual assault made against linebacker Adam Anderson by a woman who said that she passed out drunk and awoke as Anderson penetrated her without consent.

According to the Journal-Constitution, “friends of the accuser had told the police Pickens had implicated Anderson. But with his parents and (the staffer) in the room, according to court records, Pickens declined to answer questions.”

And when Anderson asked to be released on bond, Gantt was there to serve as a character witness along with eight Georgia football players in asking for his release. Anderson, who is currently facing a second rape charge, was subsequently suspended and never played for Georgia again.

Though the school’s statement to the newspaper says that the school applies the same disciplinary processes to athletes as regular students and that it cooperates fully with law enforcement and the Equal Opportunity Office and Office of Student Conduct whenever an allegation of sexual misconduct is made against an athlete, the reporting paints a detailed picture of how a big-time football program uses its resources and its reach when a player faces legal trouble.

That isn’t anything new in college sports. But the scrutiny around Georgia and someone like Gantt, who is essentially the team’s fixer when players get in trouble away from the field, began hours after the national championship parade in January. Georgia player Devin Willock and staff member Chandler LeCroy were killed in a car accident that appeared to be the result of street racing. Jalen Carter, who drove the other car involved in the incident, pled no contest to misdemeanor charges of reckless driving and racing before becoming the No. 9 pick in the NFL Draft.

Gantt, of course, was there that night, standing by with unique access to the crime scene and players as they were being interviewed by police. According to reports by the Journal-Constitution, Gantt has been in contact with court officials on 82 separate legal matters involving players between 2016 and 2023 and records show a cozy relationship with local authorities. Gantt, who previously worked as a legal assistant at an Athens law firm according to his official biography page on Georgia's Web site, joined the football program in 2011 when Mark Richt was still the head coach.

Though Smart has insisted there’s no culture problem in his program, the reality is that Georgia has built an entire infrastructure to help minimize legal issues involving players and keep them out of public view. The so-called internal discipline rarely leads to game suspensions or dismissals from the team.

That might explain, for instance, why speeding and other traffic offenses have been far too common among Georgia players under Smart, including at least 60 incidents of exceeding the speed limit by more than 20 miles per hour and at least seven citations of more than 40 miles an hour, according to the Journal-Constitution.

Nobody knew about those incidents before January. But the tragedy provided an opening for people to start poking around at what was going on in Smart’s program besides the championships and assembly line of NFL Draft picks.

It hasn’t been a good look, to say the least.

Many Georgia fans will, of course, rally to Smart’s defense because they are in the midst of the school’s most successful run ever. Fans generally don’t want to know how the sausage is made when they win, win, and win some more.

But history shows that there’s a corrosive effect to covering up or minimizing these issues, when a coach’s sole focus is winning at the expense of all else.

What afflicts a program off the field will eventually seep into the product on the field. Happens every time.

Just ask Florida fans about how quickly Urban Meyer’s kingdom came crashing down after national titles in 2006 and 2008 while off-field incidents piled up. Ask Florida State fans about how their vaunted culture atrophied after Jimbo Fisher spent two years making excuses for the troubles of Jameis Winston. The downfall of LSU under Les Miles makes a lot more sense in light of the scandals that were simmering under the surface in his later years.

We could go on and on. This is the history of college football. Nobody wins forever and nobody is impervious to a breakdown in discipline — even mighty Georgia. What isn’t dealt with on the front end will metastasize into an ugly morass of dysfunction and eventually losses.

At this point, nobody is accusing Smart of wrongdoing or calling for his firing. That would be wholly unreasonable. But the image of Georgia as a perfect program coming off consecutive national titles has undeniably been pierced. The door has been cracked open to what really goes on under Smart’s watch and all the warning signs are flashing bright.

He would be wise not to look past them, as he usually does with anything that doesn't help him win the next game.

Follow USA TODAY Sports columnist Dan Wolken on Twitter @DanWolken

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Kirby Smart ignoring Georgia football team warning signs at his peril