The hours, days, and weeks following the University of Georgia's football championship parade on January 14th have led people to being to question the character and culture of the program.
Head Coach Kirby Smart wasted no time Tuesday afternoon letting everyone know that the program is as strong as ever, culture included.
Meeting with the media ahead of the start of the Dawgs 2023 spring practices, Kirby spent more than half of his press conference addressing issues related to UGA's somewhat tumultuous off-season.
In the hours after the January 14th championship parade, defensive tackle Jalen Carter and staff member Chandler LeCroy were seen street racing after leaving downtown Athens around 2:30 AM. LeCroy, driving a university vehicle crashed while driving in excess of 100 mph. She, and UGA player Devin Willock were killed in the crash. Kirby said he's never been at a program where he's had to address a program repeatedly. "we had a session this summer where we brought in Athens-Clarke County Police and UGA Police and addressed a lot of these issues with our team, actually, in a team meeting setting and played some video of things that were going on in Atlanta with drag racing and things, things that just concern you."
In terms of culture, Kirby was honest in admitting that there have been times where the program has fallen short of where it needs to be in terms of expectations, but this team doesn't have a culture problem. "I am very strongly in belief that we have a great group of young men on our football team. We have a great culture on our football team. We’ve had our highest GPA we’ve ever had. In the fall we have the most kids doing a lot of the community outreach. It is really positive. So there’s a lot of good there that comes out of our kids that probably doesn’t get noticed as well, especially with the things that have happened here recently."
Steak and Rusty discussed the comments made by Kirby Smart yesterday, and the current state of the UGA program. You can hear those comments above.
