Freshman leaves UGA football team (UPDATED WITH RICHT REACTION)
Six months after signing with Georgia’s football program, and without participating in a single practice, freshman outside linebacker Dexter Morant left the team.
“Football’s just not for everybody,” coach Mark Richt said at his post-practice media briefing Wednesday. “I think he felt like he lost the desire to play. We tried to convince him that it would be in his best interest to stay and fight through it. . . . In the end, he felt like it wasn’t for him, at least not right now.”
Morant, a 6-foot-7, 240-pounder from Manning, S.C., signed with Georgia in February. He played defensive end in high school but was projected as an outside linebacker in new UGA defensive coordinator Todd Grantham’s 3-4 alignment.
Coming out of high school, Morant was rated the nation’s No. 15 defensive-end prospect by Rivals.com, No. 44 by Scout.com and No. 73 by ESPN.com.
Morant, who had been in Athens since June, informed Richt of his decision to leave before Tuesday’s practice.
“He told me a couple of times,” Richt said. “We were working hard to try to keep him. He was leaving; then he was staying. He was leaving; then he was staying. He finally decided he wasn’t going to stay.
“He came to me with his keys in his hand and said he wanted to go. I sat with him and tried to get him to stay. He didn’t want to do it.”
Richt isn’t sure of Morant’s plans.
“As I spoke to him, it didn’t seem like he was that interested in playing football. Period,” Richt said. “He said, ‘Coach, if I really wanted to play football, Georgia is where I want to be. It’s just that I don’t know what I want to do right now.’ It was more of a feeling like he lost the desire to play the game.”
(AJC correspondent Andy Johnston contributed to this blog from Athens.)
Other UGA coverage:
Contracts reveal UGA basketball non-conference opponents, dates, payouts.
Kansas junior college welcomes former UGA QB Mettenberger.
Coaches challenge UGA offensive line to be ‘dominant’
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374 comments Add your comment
LowCountryDawg07
August 5th, 2010
10:08 am
Long Gator
Your exactly right. And people don’t drink at UF, they are perfect little angels.
Not Disappointed
August 5th, 2010
10:09 am
typo “the young man.”
Schmeckdawg
August 5th, 2010
10:14 am
The kid is a @#$%^#@!$ candy a$$!!!!!!!!!!
hangman
August 5th, 2010
10:23 am
As an outsider who only passes through Atlanta via I75 when he has to, I’d like to ask a serious question….DOES GA TECH HAVE A CAMPUS? When you talk cesspools, Atlanta has to be the biggest cesspool of the South. Does GA TECH dropouts become the muggers, homeless, HO’s, or do you have to graduate from TECH to receive these honors?
If Tech was the only school in Georgia I wouldn’t let any relative of mine attend because of the location.
LowCountryDawg07
August 5th, 2010
10:27 am
Hangman,
Everyone knows (even Techies) that Athens is the Classic City. Many people including outsiders, consider Athens to be the best college town and setting. We have the prettiest girls, beautiful campus, football, bars, music, tradition and atmosphere.
Athens exists because of UGA. Atlanta would exist without Tech and Tech is just another boring school in a large city such as UT in Knox.
hotbobby
August 5th, 2010
10:31 am
Nice way to start off the season!
LowCountryDawg07
August 5th, 2010
10:32 am
“Georgia Tech defensive end Robert Hall has been suspended indefinitely after an argument over money with his girlfriend led to a battery charge.
A Georgia Tech police incident report says the dispute last weekend resulted in Hall slamming former Yellow Jackets basketball player Brigitte Ardossi into a door and wall of their campus residence, causing her head to bleed.”
-And their Thugs beat up women.
gdawginkalamazoo
August 5th, 2010
10:44 am
rx-dawg, the Tech cheer post yesterday @ 7:10. Hilarious.
eBuzz
August 5th, 2010
10:57 am
Late posting this response to DawginLex, but, yes, the Hope scholarship has had a positive impact on SAT scores and difficulty in getting into UGA and other state schools, and that’s a good thing. Unfortunately, however, it has not had a corresponding impact on primarily football and basketball athletes, who still get in with far lower GPA’s and SAT’s than the mainstream student. The same goes for Tech. I love sports, played for Tech, and I enjoy “Good old fashioned hate”, but I deplore seeing my school and UGA populated with thugs and morons that wouldn’t be there if they had to compete for entrance academically, which is what universities are really for.
observor
August 5th, 2010
11:19 am
Have to give eBuzz credit for having a rather rationale and objective view of the situation. I actually agree with your take on athletics and academics. I knew there were some reasonable tech people out there….
southgajacket
August 5th, 2010
11:36 am
Tech fans…please stay off georgia blogs and stories….in turn maybe they will stay off ours.
um, ah kids ..........
August 5th, 2010
11:50 am
Would all of you public school kids with GED diplomas, please not come on to the UGA blogs.
We know that your profile is that of some urban, 20 something kid, who has no hopes of ever matriculating at a stellar institution like GT of UGA or SC or Florida. So ……..you hate.
You buy the baseball cap of “your” favorite school, paarade around the local mall, sipping big urange drinks, then bad mouth all of the others by coming onto this site.
Go Dogs.
Concrete Pete
August 5th, 2010
12:34 pm
It’s easy for all of you to call the kid a “quitter” and slam him for giving up the opportunity of a lifetime by playing for a great program and getting your schooling paid for, but many of you I’m sure never played the game at a high level. Therefore, you have NO idea of how brutal the game is. Couple that by the lack of desire to play the game means Morant made the right decision. Had he stayed, he probably would have hurt the team and himself in the long run. As Coach said “football isn’t for everyone”
Concrete Pete
August 5th, 2010
12:35 pm
And this decision makes him no better or worse than anyone else.
War Eagle Man
August 5th, 2010
1:02 pm
To dawgno91 …If you only recruit UGA players from South Georgia you would have missed Eric Zier and David Pollock just to name two. So I think you’re being a little short sighted on your South Ga focus. This guy who quit on UGA was most likely a big fish in small pond and couldn’t take being an average fish where the hittin gets harder, every one is faster and a coach is willing to kick his but to motivate him. Probably a head case and too pampered in high school. I feel sorry for him, he just quit on his future unfortunately and wont realize it until it’s too late. I question his parents at this point. He needs better advise.
Has anyone asked this?
August 5th, 2010
2:20 pm
I do not read all of the comments here. No time to. Way too busy.
Has anyone asked this about the young man who left UGA for home? Maybe? he has an ill relative or someone that actually raised him is very ill or in trouble. Now, I am sure this young man comes from a solid, two parent home and has a faith based life AND plays golf and swims all summer routinely at his Dad’s and his Grandad’s country club. Right? Maybe or maybe not.
Young folks come and they go. it took me 6 years to earn a 4 year degree from UGA. Why? Too many reasons why and way too many years ago ……… in 71 & 73 . ……….. it just did. One reason is that I was young and dumb. Most young men are and that is why young men go fight wars.
This departure has no bearing whatsoever on Richt or CTG or UGA or anything ………… he wanted to go home.
Most of you NEVER went away to any college ……….. you only just hang out and bang away on Mom’s PC with your “i hate so and so school” vitriole.
Most of you never, ever played ball either. You know it, don’t you?
Go Dogs.
AltamahaDawg
August 5th, 2010
2:38 pm
When somebody is doing you a favor and you pass on it, that does not make you a quiter. It makes you a decider. It might have been a rash decision, some of us might not have underetood the decision, (although I suspect many of the critics would have done the same thing after peeing your pants) but he didn’t owe it to anybody but himself to stay.
DAWG FEVER
August 5th, 2010
4:47 pm
The kid sucked anyways. If he dont want to suit up with the DAWGS, forget him!!! Good rittens quitter!!
We have nothing but winners in A-TOWN BABY!!!
GOOOO DAWGS! SIC EM! WOOOF WOOOOF WOOOF
When is kickoff baby!?
uga72
August 5th, 2010
6:31 pm
Reality, you must be an idiot. The official words to the ending have been posted at least 3 times here. That’s it! The fight song for GT has been published numerous times for random trivia for years because of the verse about Georgia. You want to spout off about something that you have no real idea about. Just another pathetic, inferior, “I’m smarter than you, because I’m a tech fan” moron. Go post on a Tech story line. Oh yeah, that’s right, they don’t exist. Your program is still the “little brother”. Georgia fans really could care less about Tech.
Mike T.
August 5th, 2010
7:22 pm
There’s a reason UGA is known as The Cesspool of the South.
No that’s what its known as inside your shallow mind.
Mike T.
August 5th, 2010
7:31 pm
When the Jackets are triumphant
But when will that be?
42-45 still a fluke!
((((30-24))))
60-39-5
Fillin' Up @ Juniors
August 6th, 2010
9:04 am
Depressing story. Kid has huge upside can’t get his head straight to realize how rare an oppurtunity lies before him…feel bad for him, even if he is a ugag dawg player…well explayer.
Tech Lifer
August 6th, 2010
9:53 am
Maybe he didn’t want to pray with CMR. Stuffing guilt-induced religion down peoples’ throat just isn’t for everyone.
Schmeckdawg
August 6th, 2010
12:31 pm
Fillin’ Up @ Juniors, he may be back once it cools down by about 20 degrees.