I wonder what Mark Richt was thinking when he found out that Bacarri Rambo and Alec Ogletree failed a drug test recently.
After Isaiah Crowell, Ken Malcome and Carlton Thomas, the top 3 tailbacks on the depth chart, failed a drug test and had to sit out against New Mexico State, you could chalk that up to “boys being boys.” College kids will do dumb things, and smoking reefer during the season is very dumb.
After Branden Smith was hot boxing in rural South Alabama on the way to PCB, you had to just scratch your head and say “Damn.” After what happened to the tailbacks, and the looming importance of the upcoming 2012 season, it is unfathomable to think that a football player would make the same dumb decision again.
After Rambo and Ogletree fail their drug tests, now some serious questions have to be asked.
Is there a rampant drug problem within the football program? Is Coach Richt’s message not being heard? How much will Greg McGarity and President Adams tolerate?
I think some of those questions are warranted and little extreme at the same time.
Many on other Dawg blogs are enamored with TCU’s Gary Patterson. TCU had a similar problem last month when a former player said that there was a rampant drug problem within the Horned Frogs and as many as 60 players could test positive. 5 of their football players tested positive for weed, so it wasn’t as severe as originally feared.
Georgia has had 6 players with drug related infractions since last November. That is 6 too many. I can’t keep up with the number of players Georgia has on Scholarship right now, but let’s say arbitrarily it is 80. 6/80 is roughly 8%. I wonder if you random tested the 34,000+ students at UGA, how many would test positive for weed? That 8% of 34,000 comes out to 2,720. Is that reasonable? I don’t know, I am just asking. Georgia has a more rigorous drug policy than the other SEC schools. I wonder if you drug tested every other football player in the conference, how many of them would test positive? I wonder how many have tested positive that we never hear about? So to answer the first question, I would say “No, not for now.”
But the other two questions, I can’t be so sure about. After the first failed drug tests from the 3 running backs, you know that Coach Richt and the other Coaches and probably Greg McGarity had a come to Jesus meeting with the team, or at least I would hope so. It is not frustrating that the players make dumb mistakes, it is frustrating that the players (in some cases, the same players) are making the exact same dumb mistakes.
I was talking to a friend today that used to be a sports journalist for a local TV station. We were talking about some of the athletes he has interviewed in his career, and he told me that in his opinion, most players don’t care if they win or lose. He told me that, as an avid fan, I probably cared more about if a team wins or loses than most of the players on a particular team, in this case UGA. I kind of scoffed at that opinion. I am a fan; I have no skin in the game. I go to the games, I follow it intently, and I write a blog where I can express my opinions. My livelihood is not tied to the games. It is a hobby, one that I thoroughly love.
But when news likes this breaks, in the middle of spring practice, in a year when Georgia is the sheik pick to make a run at the BCS, and after the other players that have been popped, you have to start asking the three questions I listed above in addition to one more question: do the players who constantly make the same infractions with no regard to the consequence care?
If they don’t give a rip, then why should I?
Corbindawg
The Grit Tree 
I do give a rip but it is hard to determine Why.
Do other schools have the same problems? I think that they do.
UGA’s disciplinary program is about as open & detailed as possible.
Why do the players do this when the know the consequences? “Do they even care?”.
Keep after them & keep suspending them is the only course that I can agree with. Richt & McGarity are handling it correctly. “Go Dawgs”.
The players are there for a few years and move on. We have nowhere to go except back to Sanford Stadium the next year.
It would not surprise me at all if it were true that the fans care more about winning and losing than the players.
Of course the fans care more. The only way to “weed out” the drugs is to dismiss a player from the team on his first infraction. Soon you won’t have enough to play. The message on marijuana use is “only” a game or two suspension so a player who wants to use it thinks nothing of it.
Muscogee Dawg
They are selfish and short sited……it is called being young and it pisses me off. I hope this cost Rambo 5 or 6 million in the draft. We need to change policy AND THE PUNISHMENT for the exact reasons you stated–THEY DONT CARE AS MUCH AS THEY SHOULD ABOUT WINNING. Add running and take away some of their nightlife AND THEY WILL learn…nothing is harder than sitting in a dorm room at that age while your friends are chasing women. If you do not disclose the infraction you can punish them as you see fit with no public recourse.
Good or bad, UGA has a stringent policy and to turn back on that policy would make the institution look weak or like it is not committed to discipline. In this day and age, you can’t have a “Pig Incident” like the old days.
Its just weed… Get out… wake up… I would be willing to bet you at least 20% of the students at UGA smoke at least occasionally. Probably moreso at other schools. Plus, there are about a hundred ways that anyone who has ever smoked knows about how to beat a drug test… especially when you know its coming. Theres no excuse for this. I’d also love to know who’s bright idea it was to hold a drug test right after spring break too…. what did that idiot expect to happen???
You don’t hear about it as much with other SEC schools because only UGA and Kentucky suspend players on the first offense. Hell, in Gainesville you get 5 chances before you are dismissed from the program and at Ole Miss they don’t even get suspended until your THIRD offense.
Check out the drug policies from around the conference. This was posted on the Leather Helmet Blog.
Alabama: (1) none; (2) 15 percent of games; (3) one year; (4) dismissal.
Arkansas: (1) none; (2) 10 percent of games; (3) 50 percent of games; (4) dismissal.
Auburn: (1) none; (2) 50 percent of games; (3) dismissal.
Florida: (1) none; (2) 10 percent of games; (3) 20 percent of games; (4) 50 percent of games; (5) dismissal.
Georgia: (1) 10 percent of games; (2) 50 percent of games; (3) dismissal.
Kentucky: (1) 10 percent of games; (2) 50 percent of games; (3) dismissal.
LSU: (1) none; (2) 15 percent of games; (3) one year.
Ole Miss: (1) none; (2) none; (3) three games.
Mississippi State: (1) none; (2) 50 percent of games; (3) one year; (4) dismissal.
South Carolina: (1) none; (2) 25 percent of games; (3) dismissal.
Tennessee: (1) none; (2) 10 percent of games; (3) dismissal.
*Private universities not required to respond to public record requests that would not voluntarily provide drug policy to FanHouse: Vanderbilt
The conference needs to standardize this and McGarity needs to lead the charge as UGA is at a disadvantage. This would also help Richt’s image. I can’t believe people claim he is too lenient and has lost control. They have the strictest policy what else can he do?
If the league won’t standardize this then I feel we should change to the policy Auburn uses.
Exactly. There needs to be a uniform policy by the conference. But if Georgia changes now, can you imagine the PR nightmare that would be? The meme on the AJC and anti Richt Georgia fans like Bill Shanks will be that “Georgia is lessening its standards to be more competitive.”
Fans can talk about how Richt has under performed, done less with more, etc…, which is partially true. But if LSU, for example, had someone flunk a drug test, they wouldn’t face suspension.