News broke around 3:30 p.m. Tuesday afternoon that Georgia Bulldogs’ strong safety Josh Harvey-Clemons was dismissed from the football team. Georgia announced the news in a two-sentence press release that said Harvey-Clemons was kicked off due to a violation of team rules.
It could be drugs. It could be a pistol in his car with the serial number filed off.
At this point, I’m not going to be surprised by anything a Dawg gets in trouble for. What matters is coach Mark Richt is going to kick them off the team. End of story.
Last season, Harvey-Clemons was third-leading tackler for the Bulldogs. He had three fumble recoveries and an interception.
He was also one of the players involved with the infamous pass deflection against Auburn that landed the ball right in the receiver’s hands; their “miracle” touchdown pass.
I’m sick and tired of this happening to the Bulldogs. Every season we lose players due to these “team rules” violations, either via suspension or booted off the team like Harvey-Clemons.
I’m torn between letting them play because they’re an important part of the team and getting them out of there because they’re breaking the rules. All I want is a Georgia football team that wins. Even a National Championship would be nice. But it’s hard to do that when the players can’t act straight enough to stay on the team.
It begs the question: are the rules too strict? Other schools in the SEC may not be as strict on their team policies.
I promise you, all college student-athletes are doing the same things as Georgia’s athletes are. Some coaches may be letting it slide or have less severe punishment.
There’s an ongoing joke that says “Mark Richt has lost control of…” fill in the blank. We have so many suspensions every offseason that the whole world of college football laughs. Should Richt and the Georgia Department of Athletics ease up on the rules? Maybe.
But one thing is for sure. We’re losing players, and we need some kind of revolution that can keep those kids on track.