Behind The Red And Black: Underbelly Of Back-To-Back National Champ Georgia Not So Pretty Amid Assault Accusations

The most obvious and best way college football programs recruit great players now is through the new world of open payments to athletes. This started in 2021 after the NCAA stopped trying to ban pay for players who claimed they deserved money through their Name, Image & Likeness (NIL). The NCAA kept losing NIL-related lawsuits and just gave up.

Since that summer, it has been the Wild West in college sports with money flowing throughout campuses like testosterone at a fraternity rush party. Top college athletes were actually getting cash for nearly 100 years at hordes of major programs. It's just more organized and more open now and available to more players through major booster, donor and supporter syndicates called collectives.

But there is another more subtle recruiting ploy that has also been around for nearly a century and can still be very critical to a program.

And it appears to be working well at the University of Georgia, according to an exhaustive report by the Atlanta Journal Constitution (AJC) this week. It pays to have local law enforcement and legal systems in your corner as much as "legally" possible.

Because you have to keep those top players and those top recruits.

Georgia Recruit Was Accused of Sexual Assault

For example, last June top 100 high school prospect defensive lineman Jamaal Jarrett of Greensboro, North Carolina, visited the University of Georgia campus in Athens and got into some trouble. Athens Police investigated Jarrett for sexual assault of a woman he previously knew at her Athens hotel room. This was the same hotel in which Jarrett and several other football prospects were staying on the recruiting weekend.

While having consensual oral sex with the woman in her room, Jarrett (6-foot-5, 330 pounds) filmed the act on his cellular phone, the woman told Athens Police, according to the AJC. She also told police the sex was no longer consensual after a certain point. She told Jarrett she wanted to stop, and told the detective that's when he became physically aggressive. She said Jarrett forced her to her knees and insisted she resume having sex.

“He literally grabbed all of me up with one arm,” she told the detective. “In the back of my mind, as much as I trusted him, I was like, ‘He can do anything to me right now.’”

Woman Called The Police

After Jarrett left her room at about 6 a.m., she called the police.

An investigation followed. Within minutes after the woman called police, Georgia's director of player support and operations Bryant Gantt was on the scene talking to police after hotel personnel tipped him off.

Then later, when police questioned Jarrett at Athens Police headquarters, Gantt was there sitting right next to Jarrett. But this was no intense interrogation as we see in the movies. Police did not shine a bright light on Jarrett while peppering him with questions.

According to the AJC, it was a "remarkably friendly interrogation." And the detective investigating the sexual assault allegation even mentioned "my beloved Bulldogs." That must have been comforting for Jarrett.

Georgia Football Program Has A Cleaner

Gantt must be a very valuable employee. Perhaps as valuable at times as any major donor's contribution to a top signee's or top transfer's lucrative NIL portfolio. For 19 years before becoming "program coordinator" in 2011, Gantt was a legal assistant at an Athens law firm.

His current bio at Georgia as "director of player support and operations" lists his responsibilities as "providing advice and counsel to student-athletes in areas related to life skills, personal accountability, and personal development."

Gannt's above bio could be much briefer. He's a cleaner. And those "operations" above? If not covert, very quiet. His bio fails to include the fact that he negotiates plea deals with lawyers, sets up court dates around football practices and games, drives football players to police headquarters, remains in close contact with police and pays various traffic and other fines.

Many major football programs have someone like Gantt. It is all perfectly legal and smart.

Jarrett committed to Georgia on July 19. Athens Police completed its investigation without any charges on Aug. 18 and closed the case. Jarrett signed with Georgia's class of 2023 and is preparing for next season.

Georgia Coach Kirby Smart Has Won 2 Straight National Titles

Gantt sat in an Athens courtroom on Nov. 21, 2021, for then-Georgia outside linebacker Adam Anderson's bond hearing on felony rape charges. A female football office employee made the accusation. She told police on Oct. 29 that when she woke up that morning, Adams was raping her.

Georgia linebacker Adam Anderson sacks Florida quarterback Anthony Richardson during the Bulldogs' 34-7 win at Jacksonville, Florida, in the 2021 season. (Photo by David Rosenblum/Getty Images)

On Nov. 1, Athens' deputy police chief sent Gantt a report of the accusation against Anderson.

Georgia Football Roll Call In Court

With Anderson's accuser in the courtroom on Nov. 21, eight of his teammates showed up as witnesses. As each stood up, they didn't just say their name. They said their position as if they were about to play a nationally televised game back in the day:

Anderson and his attorney Steve Sadow, a 1979 Georgia graduate, must have felt great. Their team was behind them. Anderson's alleged victim must have surely felt outnumbered just minutes from Sanford Stadium, where the Bulldogs play and practice football.

Kirby Smart's Presence Felt In Courtroom

"Your honor, pursuant to my promise to Kirby Smart," Sadow said, "may they be released to go back to team activities?"

Wonder if they sold programs before court kicked off?

Georgia coach Kirby Smart during the Bulldogs win over TCU last January 9 for the national championship in Inglewood, California. (Photo by Sean M. Haffey/Getty Images)

Smart was not at the bond hearing, but his presence was all over it as the judge dismissed the players and moved on to further action.

"Clearly, they’re getting involved to maintain his status as an athlete," college campus sexual assault attorney Cari Simon of Denver told the AJC. "Does every student criminally charged with rape have the school intervene to try to not have consequences?"

The players weren't there for the female employee of the football program.

Former Georgia Football Player Awaiting Trial

Anderson was released on bond and is still awaiting trials on the Athens rape charge and on a second one after the first in Watkinsville, Georgia. At least, Smart kicked Anderson off the team for good in November of 2021. He was not part of the Bulldogs' national championship win over Alabama later that season.

"A lot of the people I worked with were in the courtroom to support the person who abused me," the alleged victim told the AJC after leaving the football program. She said she walked by Gantt (the cleaner) after the hearing.

"He was staring at me, smiling,” she said. "It was really weird, like he was trying to intimidate me."

Welcome to big time college football. Yes, it's a business, we know. And it seems to get more seedy by the day. Georgia and coach Smart need to clean up their act from A to Z as LSU was forced to do - or at least pretend to do - after going through a wave of similar accusations after it won the 2019 national title.

"The University of Georgia and athletic association consider any allegation of sexual assault or domestic abuse to be a very serious matter, and we take swift and appropriate action in response to allegations when warranted," Georgia said in a statement this week.

That's great, but Georgia has a major culture problem with its football program.

The person with the most ability and power to curb it or stop it is Kirby Smart.

You've got your two championships, Kirby, and there are likely more down the road. But you've got important issues to deal with now.

It's not like you're desperate for players. Look a little closer. Try to mix in more with high character.

Try to be another type of cleaner, and kick more players off your team who deserve it.