Despite latest arrest, Georgia insists it doesn’t have discipline problem
Note: There will be a “Ten at 10″ this week but it has been moved to Wednesday . . .
ATHENS — After having one of their better years in a while in regard to off-field problems for players, trouble is starting to stack up a little for Georgia.
Branden Smith’s arrest for marijuana possession in South Alabama Sunday night represented the second arrest of UGA football player this year — cornerback Sanders Commings was arrested for a domestic violence incident in January — and third if one counts tight end Orson Charles’ arrest for DUI last week (Charles declared for the NFL draft and not an official member of the team).
And that’s just players who have run into trouble from the law. Head coach Mark Richt dismissed three players from the team in January for stealing from a teammate.
But Richt doesn’t believe there is a lack of discipline in the program and contends that the Bulldogs are stricter than most programs when it comes to keeping players in line.
“When guys do make mistakes, two things are very important: How we handle it and how he handles it,” Richt said. “Are we going to discipline our players the way they ought to be disciplined according to what they’ve done? I think we do that. I think we do that more strictly than most people do. If you look at other people’s policies, ours is much tougher than just about anybody other’s pocliy I’ve seen. So because some of our guys end up with a game suspension or whatever it may be, a kid at another school may do the very same thing and their policy doesn’t say that it has to be that way. I mean, I don’t care what they do. All I’m saying is I think it’s important how you handle it.”
Unlike many programs, UGA’s punishments are written down in black and white in the Student-Athlete Handbook. For instance, in the case of Smith’s arrest for marijuana possession, that falls under UGA’s codes for “alcohol and drug-related misconduct.” That means an automatic suspension from 10 percent of competition dates (in this case one game), future drug-testing, education and counseling and additional discipline as determined by what’s called the “Comprehensive Action Plan Committee.”
Said Richt: “Our goal when our guys make mistakes is to find out the truth about it and then discipline it properly. The second thing that is important is how they respond to it. If they learn from their mistakes and become better people because of it, then that’s a positive thing in that guy’s life. If he’s not truthful about it and acts like he didn’t do anything wrong and his behavior isn’t going to change in any way shape or form, then he’s probably not going to be at Georgia very long. That’s just kind of the way things go. To think every single guy is not ever going to make a mistake and be perfect, I don’t think is realistic. It’s certainly what we search for. Is it frustrating? Yes, it is.”
Adding to Richt’s frustration was the timing of the Smith’s incident. Just last week, Athletic Director Greg McGarity assembled every UGA student-athlete at the Georgia Center for Continuing Educaton to talk about the importance of good behavior during the upcoming spring break (which began this week). The football team followed that up with a separate meeting of their own. So it’s not like the issue wasn’t addressed.
“Oh yeah, we always do,” Richt said. “We ought to video those [meetings] just to make sure everybody knows we do that.”
Ultimately, it comes down to the character of the players the coaches recruit to campus. I asked McGarity how much he held coaches responsible for their players’ behavior.
“Accountability is a foregone conclusion,” McGarity said. “You hold coaches accountable in every sport for their entire program. That’s just part of the deal, just like I’m accountable for every employee. I’m accountable for 250 full-time staff members. So we’re all accountable to someone and that language is currently in [Richt's] contract right now.”
– Chip Towers, The UGA Blog
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262 comments Add your comment
Bob
March 13th, 2012
5:26 pm
While I’m not currently a Richt fan, I do think he’s doing all he can. But, there is too much wiggle room…how ’bout one and done? With Smith’s two game suspension, he’ll be football effective for maybe half the season.
KBP
March 13th, 2012
5:49 pm
A discipline problem at UGA would be CMR failing to punish kids for their infractions. Arrests are a behavior problem. CMR, Saban, Miles, Chizik, Meyer, nor any other coach can control a kids behavior. Why not interview the parents/guardians of these kids and hold them accountable, if possible? Not lay this at the feet of coaches who did not raise the kids nor establish their value system. Let’s hear what Orson Charles’ and Branden Smith’s parents have to say.
1 4 GT
March 13th, 2012
5:51 pm
If you roll down the window while smoking pot, the smoke/scent still permeates the fabric of your clothes & the upholstery.
William Smith
March 13th, 2012
5:53 pm
I don’t blame Mark Richt for these problems. It seems unusual that every time one of these players gets in trouble his high school coach tells how great a kid he is. Don’t believe for one minute he wouldn’t the same way in high school. College players get away with everything in many respects due to the power of the alumni. If he had been caught in Athens Georgia this would have never been known about. This is not only Georgia but every college program. Back to high school I learned one thing in life. It is a lot easier to be strict and ease up than the other way around. Don’t worry though all this will be settled at many college players last stop the prison system.
Gwinnett Fred
March 13th, 2012
6:13 pm
UGA might not have a dicipline peoblem, but their players seem to have a SELF-DICIPLINE problem.
I’m also glad the latest arrestee was nabbed outside Athens/Clarke County – or the woofers would all be screaming (once again) that the local gestapo has it in for their boys (child please)
UGASlobberknocker
March 13th, 2012
6:34 pm
This blogging is great. I come on at noon, make a few points about Alabama and their overly obsessive fans..then for the next 6 hrs those morons have proven me right. Maybe now that their possum dinner is cooked we can get some peace while Mom and them sit down for some vittles.
UGASlobberknocker
March 13th, 2012
6:35 pm
@ Bammer
Run Forrest!!!
This is an outrage!!
March 13th, 2012
6:39 pm
Wow. a car full of colege students heading to spring break included one guy who had some weed. Please someone pick me up off of the floor. I am shocked.
This is an outrage. They will probably be doing heroin by midnight tonight!. Kick them off of he team and send them to boot camp.
Then go pound down 10 or e12 beers..after all thats legal so its fine, right?
Gwinnett Fred
March 13th, 2012
6:42 pm
@ this is an outrage:
Not if he’s behind the wheel while smoking or drinking stupid – like his fool was!
johnny cash
March 13th, 2012
6:45 pm
i will be singing at all county jail houses where dawgs are locked up .
collegeballfan
March 13th, 2012
7:12 pm
If it is not the rules and the policies, then the only other answer is the people. Mybe UGA needs to recruit a better class of people.
Just suggesting.
LCDawg
March 13th, 2012
7:46 pm
Legalize marijuana already…what a joke.
Mako
March 13th, 2012
7:46 pm
1 Question for Techies…how come whenever something happens at MidTown High, good old Sugura won’t allow comments……why?
wezzie
March 13th, 2012
8:11 pm
How in the world is Richt responsible for a teenagers behavior. What did you do on spring break as a teenager? I bet some pretty stupid stuff-enough said!!!!!!!!!!
San Diego Steve
March 13th, 2012
8:12 pm
these problems would all go away if student athletes were forced to live on campus in supervised athletic dorms with curfews.
Dawg89
March 13th, 2012
8:15 pm
So, Chipper, why would you count OC as the third arrest when as you point out he is no longer on the team? Are you trying to sensationalize the story to make your weak point?
Apostle
March 13th, 2012
8:18 pm
Richt is way too soft his player and it may come back to bite him in the rear.Alabama does not have these problems.
Chris
March 13th, 2012
8:22 pm
COACH HE ONLY DESERVES A 1 GAME SUSPENSION!!!!!
tape worm
March 13th, 2012
8:23 pm
In order to change the discipline problem at UGA, you would first have to change the inherent culture of the players who receive a scholarship.
Well
March 13th, 2012
8:32 pm
it’s a story
Smitty
March 13th, 2012
9:08 pm
Blair…..you don’t have a clue as to what goes on with young people anymore.
Fulmer award committee
March 13th, 2012
9:26 pm
Loooks like the dawgs are picking up where they left off in their quest for the Fulmer cup. If you can’t be champions on the field you might as well be number one in something. Its gotta really suck to be a dawg fan.
Discipline
March 13th, 2012
9:33 pm
Its all about discipline. A bama fan posted earlier that in Saban’s tenure he has had 6 players arrested which sounds about right since you never hear of their players getting arrested. In the same time frame UGA has had 35 players arrested and an AD. That is why we are not winning championships. We field a team that completely lacks focus and discipline and this is readily reflected in all the arrests. He may be a jerk but that jerk fields well oiled, disciplined football teams that are more like well trained armies then kids who would rather drink, smoke weed, steal from fellow players, etc. While our guys are headed to the beach to drink and gets stoned as this one players was thier players are hitting the weights in offseason conditioning work. Is it really any wonder that Alabama is where they are at and why we are where we are at?
waynedawg
March 13th, 2012
9:44 pm
You know Bama fan’s have always been the biggest hipocrits.They’ve had more sanctions put on them than any other school and they’ve been ranked the #1 party school forever.At on time they could’nt stand their coach when he was an LSU’er,but now they love him.At least UGA can handle the dirt thats slung around at them.If your going to throw rocks make sure you have plenty of them.
Chip Towers
March 13th, 2012
10:17 pm
BG: I don’t think there is a school with a more strict student-athlete conduct code than Georgia.
Dawglasville
March 13th, 2012
10:25 pm
Chip – people are going to believe what they want to believe. You will never hear someone blog, “Wow. I never looked at it like that.”
Dawglasville
March 13th, 2012
10:27 pm
Whoops! BG is one of the good guys. My bad Dawg.
Score Check
March 13th, 2012
11:47 pm
Coach Sick Satan = Scum
Tweak your knee and he leaves you twisting in the wind
Tree Rollins
March 14th, 2012
12:36 am
UGA recruits some of the best axe murderers, car thieves, and drug dealers available! Then Mark Richt “heals” them!
Tree Rollins
March 14th, 2012
12:38 am
It’s the UGA way!!
Tree Rollins
March 14th, 2012
12:40 am
As Chip notes, UGA has rules like “no rapes after 12 midnight” Team rules – very strict.
Mountain Dawg
March 14th, 2012
5:16 am
The Trade School Nerds have a drug problem. They keep getting ‘drug’ up and down the field.
SEC Football Daily: March 14th | Saturday Down South
March 14th, 2012
5:24 am
[...] Georgia still insists it does not have a discipline problem. This off-season, Georgia has had two (or three) players arrested. Sanders Commings and Brandon Smith were both arrested from next year’s team, and former tight end Orson Charles was arrested for DUI. The Georgia AD holds the coaches accountable for the players and himself for the coaches. [AJC] [...]
Thomas Brown
March 14th, 2012
6:38 am
“The thing to keep an eye on when Georgia releases all the particulars of Richt’s new deal is how much the buyout has been tweaked. In other words, extensions in the world of the SEC are merely window dressing unless they’re backed up by guaranteed money.”
——————————————————————————-
Chris Low, ESPN, on the part of his article today no one wants to talk about.
Thomas Brown
March 14th, 2012
6:48 am
Chip Towers, states :”Ultimately, it comes down to the character of the players the coaches recruit to campus. I asked McGarity how much he held coaches responsible for their players’ behavior.”
“Accountability is a foregone conclusion,” Greg McGarity said. “You hold coaches accountable in every sport for their entire program. That’s just part of the deal So we’re all accountable to someone and that language is currently in [Richt's] contract right now.”
_____________________________________________________
That’s clear enough. The coaches, who are given credit for recruiting the players here, are held accountable for their actions on and off the field, and given credit for what their recruits accomplish positively as well.
_____________________________________________________
As for the Discipline Policy at UGA, whose fault is that that we’ve had to implement the toughest Discipline Policy in the nation ? Did we just come up with that from above, or was it in fact in response to the on-going 12-year now history of what has become a total embarrassment to The University of Georgia both on the field and off the field.
Neutral
March 14th, 2012
7:04 am
Hear we go again
Thomas Brown = Mr Negativity = Techie (posing as a Dawg fan)
Thomas Brown
March 14th, 2012
7:07 am
Discipline March 13th, 2012 9:33 pm
“Its all about discipline. A bama fan posted earlier that in Saban’s tenure he has had 6 players arrested which sounds about right since you never hear of their players getting arrested. In the same time frame UGA has had 35 players arrested and an AD. That is why we are not winning championships. We field a team that completely lacks focus and discipline and this is readily reflected in all the arrests. He may be a jerk but that jerk fields well oiled, disciplined football teams that are more like well trained armies then kids who would rather drink, smoke weed, steal from fellow players, etc. While our guys are headed to the beach to drink and gets stoned as this one players was thier players are hitting the weights in offseason conditioning work. Is it really any wonder that Alabama is where they are at and why we are where we are at?”
_________________________________________________
What ? You mean no lame excuses ? No other rendition of how to count-up the recruits Mark Richt signed here and which – according to his contract words – he is held accountable for their actions on and off the field :
This is the last couple of weeks, now, weak ? :
(1) Nick Marshall, Cornerback
(2) Chris Sanders, Defensive Back
(3) Sanford Seay
(4) Orson Charles
(5) Sanders Commings, Cornerback
(6) Branden Smith, Cornerback
Next ?
RHall55
March 14th, 2012
7:08 am
I see this as a Coach Scott Lakotos problem also!! He is the position coach where all these issues are happening; each postion should be accountable for his players problem: Sanders Commings suspended; Chris Sanders and Nick Marshall kicked off the Team; and now Branden Smith arrested!! C’mon Man!! Add to that, you only signed one DB in last year’s class and no in-state DB’s: losing out on Geno Smith to AL, Josh Holsey to AU (he stated he would have committed to UGA if he had been offered in April ‘11), and Chaz Elder to SC; not only did we lose them but will have to play against them; CSL where are these northern connections you should be bringing to the table? Lost out on Yuri Wright and E Shumpert!! C’mon Man!!! You are a very good Coach but you must be a recruiter as well as keeping your position players on the roster!!! “Win, Baby, Win!”
Thomas Brown
March 14th, 2012
7:42 am
Mark Richt’s 2011 Contract, since there is not 2012 Contract yet :
SECTION 1, PART C :
“Mark Richt’s duties include that his student-athletes shall have the personal characteristics necessary to be well-regarded representatives of The University.”
King Gator
March 14th, 2012
7:57 am
Roll one, smoke one and we all just having fun!
dagrapevine
March 14th, 2012
8:12 am
well at least it wasn’t a drive by shooting at a bar or stealing a laptop.
GT
March 14th, 2012
8:50 am
Blind leading the blind and then reported on by the blind, there has to be a tax benefit to this somewhere.
True Dog Fan #3
March 14th, 2012
8:53 am
Hey “Trupert”, if Saban runs a dirty program and he has no more control of his players than Richt does, then explain why BAMA wins all the time and Georgia does not?
Neutral
March 14th, 2012
9:00 am
Thomas Brown is a Techie trying to tear UGa down. He has never had a positive thing to say about the Dawgs……just non-stop venom. I guarantee he is either a Tech fan or the worst UGa fan in history!!!! He is poison
Thomas Brown
March 14th, 2012
9:07 am
Oh, Georgia does win. We beat Alabama when they were no good. We beat everyone when they are no good. Well, sometimes we lose to no good teams such as Vandie who was 4-8 yet beat us and South Carolina who was 6-6 yet beat us etc., but with 3 wins in 11 years against teams who finished in the Top 10 out of 16 games, 3 such wins – is winning, you see ?
10-win season 2011 is winning. Forget that 27 other teams in 2011 alone all had 10-win season 2011. Forget we lost the most games of all 27 of the 10-win teams 2011, with 4 losses. We won 10. We will be fine. We have an even easier softer schedule in 2012 than we had in 2011. So, we will win 2012 as well.
It is important to listen to both sides of this.
We do win.
Well, over the Current 4-Year Period we are # 32 in won/lost record nationally and # 8 of just SEC teams 2012.
But, that is “just fine,” you see ?
That is all to which we aspire to around here.
We’re just fine.
T Kyle King this morning says that Mark Richt is not performing up to his standards.
And, the vast majority of the posters to this blog say the same.
Then, we have a vocal minority who want everyone banned who think this is not winning or not fine.
They don’t wish to discuss it.
Just don’t let anyone say it.
Bama’s program is dirty because they are better than us.
Auburn’s too.
NCAA says otherwise, but don’t tell that to the clique.
They will not discuss it.
We’re just fine.
Thomas Brown
March 14th, 2012
9:15 am
I quoted you correctly, stating you are a soldier, drive a red Ferrari and no one should ever criticize the Bulldogs’ football team. Then, you added all these :
“OL still needs to improve
quit worrying.
Oh I forgot, you aren’t worrying because you are the enemy.
We need to get our offense cranked-up to give the defense a rest.
Be patient
take the pressure off Murray.
give Murray another season
I feel your pain
Yes indeed we need to improve”
______________________________________________
Are you seriously attempting to state that these are not ALL
NEGATIVE ?
Neutral
GT
March 14th, 2012
9:31 am
I wish Tech was Georgia’s problem. I wish Georgia players was Georgia’s problem. You could just about take a group of none UGA , but born in Georgia, players every year and beat the players that go to the state school. Not even putting Tech in the mix. You laugh at Tech but Calvin Johnson and Demaryius Thomas are pretty good receivers. They either are not as talented as advertised going to Georgia or you aren’t developing them and other schools are developing theirs. You were going to make a receiver out of Cam Newton, tight end. Nuff said.
monty
March 14th, 2012
9:38 am
The problem is that you don’t just suddenly become a recreational dope smoker. You may decide to get drunk on SB when you ordinarily wouldn’t, you may be enticed to smoke dope when it’s passed around on SB, but IMO you don’t decide to pick up a bag of weed before you leave town headed for the beach if it’s not something you’re unaccustomed to. Just doesn’t happen that way.
Pdogg
March 14th, 2012
9:44 am
Well here goes Thomas Brown spewing his garbage again… All true dawg fans please know that Thomas Brown is NOT a uga fan, He does NOT know what he is talking about, and he does NOT speak for anyone but his own stupid self. Lets support the dawgs, enough of this negativity. GATA
MIKE
March 14th, 2012
9:50 am
LA DAWG..WHICH IS SPELLED WRONG…..I GUESS OF MUST MEAN OFF…CAN TELL YOUR A GA FAN FORSURE..CHECK YOUR SPELLING THERE BOY YOU NITWIT 2ND GRADER