Georgia football coach Kirby Smart and university athletic director Josh Brooks on Tuesday denied allegations contained in a report from The Atlanta Journal-Constitution which described a pattern of the program’s rushing to defend players who have been accused of sexual assault.
The Journal-Constitution reported in June that 11 players during Smart’s tenure were permitted to remain on the team after women reported violent encounters with them to the school, police or both. The report mentioned that one player, who was charged with recording a sex act with an unconscious woman, stayed on the roster for a full season before transferring. Other transgressions include players’ threatening their girlfriends and sexual assault, according to the report.
Smart said Tuesday that his program takes such allegations “extremely serious,” while Brooks called the reporting on the issue “inaccurate and misleading.”
“It crossed a serious line, and we will not stand for this conjecture,” Brooks said, per the Journal-Constitution‘s Alan Judd. “The reporting also conveniently minimizes the significant actions we’ve taken in direct response to address these matters.”
The report comes during an offseason in which players from the team were involved in reckless driving incidents, most notably a Jan. 15 crash that killed offensive lineman Devin Willock and Bulldogs staff member Chandler LeCroy.
Smart opted not to discuss specific instances of players who were accused of sexual assault but insisted he and the program do not take such matters lightly.
“We do not tolerate sexual misconduct in our organization. I’m a football coach. I’m responsible for this program, and it starts with me,” Smart said, per The Athletic‘s Jeff Schultz. “I see this through the lens of, I have a wife and a daughter. When I think about these situations, I think about them. It’s personal to me. But I will not tolerate false accusations that this program or this university condone sexual misconduct. We have no tolerance for sexual assault or abuse. Never have and never will.”
