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Stop us if you’ve heard this one before — a pair of Georgia football players were arrested earlier this week on charges of reckless driving.
No, this isn’t an old article. It just happened again.
Georgia linebacker Smael Mondon and tackle Bo Hughley were arrested earlier this week on misdemeanor charges that included reckless driving according to Dawgs 247.
Oh, and the arrests were separate incidents as well.
Athens-Clarke County Police arrested Mondon on charges of reckless driving and racing on highways/streets. Hughley, meanwhile, was arrested by UGA police on charges of reckless driving and failure to maintain lane/improper driving on road.
Neither charge sounds particularly serious in a vacuum.
Police booked Hughley at 8:37 p.m. on Tuesday night and released at 10:08 p.m. that night. Mondon was booked at 11:05 p.m. on Wednesday night and released about an hour later. Their bonds totaled just $26.
But it continues an unsettling trend for Kirby Smart’s program.
Kirby Smart Has Done Nothing To Fix Georgia’s Reckless Driving Problem
According to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, 19 Georgia football players have been incarcerated for driving-related offenses since the January 15, 2023 accident that killed offensive lineman Devin Willock and recruiting analyst Chandler LeCroy. LeCroy was racing a vehicle with other members of the football team while under the influence of alcohol. Willock was a passenger.
Former Georgia and current Philadelphia Eagles star Jalen Carter was cited for racing charges in that case.
“I’ll be the first to admit we haven’t solved that issue or problem,” Smart told reporters last summer. “I don’t honestly know that anybody has, but certainly for us, it’s important to acknowledge it first. We’ve had a lot of intervention in terms of talking and visiting, and discipline measures have been implemented in terms of education. We’ll continue to do that.”
Smart seemingly took a hands-off approach to managing the problem.
“It’s one of the things that we want to manage, but it is a tough situation to manage when you have 18- to 22-year-old men [and] a lot of them are driving for the first time,” he said. “You know, every fall we have 25 new guys. We’ve averaged five guys that come here at 18 years old with no driver’s license, and we continue to work on that. I don’t have the exact answer. I wish I did, but we continue to work at it.
“I’m one of those that believes abuse brings control, and we’ll continue to educate our players the best we can and try to do a better job with it.”
Maybe it’s time for a new approach…