Among the many things we have learned about Missouri football coach Eli Drinkwitz is that he pays plenty of attention to the entire college football landscape.
Drinkwitz is never shy about cracking a joke about conference expansion; the crazy name, image and likeness scene; or even touchier topics, such as Michigan鈥檚 sign-stealing scandal under former Wolverines coach Jim Harbaugh.
So it鈥檚 safe to assume Drinkwitz is well aware of the one problem near-flawless SEC powerhouse Georgia can鈥檛 seem to solve.
The biggest threat to the Bulldogs dominating the SEC this season isn鈥檛 Alabama, Ole Miss or even conference newcomer Texas.
It鈥檚 the damage 鈥 of both the legal and life-altering variety 鈥 that can be caused by the combination of fast cars and young men who feel invincible when they are driving them.
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For a known control freak, Georgia head coach Kirby Smart has a startling hole in his game. His players have a terrible habit of putting themselves and others at risk when they drive. Georgia鈥檚 football program has produced a startling amount of damage due to its history of players speeding, racing and driving recklessly.
That there have been new examples added to the list since a 2023 crash killed Georgia player Devin Willock and recruiting staffer Chandler LeCroy is as sad as it is absurd. According to Athens Banner-Herald reporting, Smart鈥檚 program has had at least 29 arrests or citations for speeding, reckless driving or racing since that fatal crash.
Smart is the best coach in college football since Alabama legend Nick Saban retired, and the truth is Smart had passed Saban by before Saban switched to his new career of TV commentating. Smart excels at not just recruiting great players but getting them to practice and play as relentlessly as walk-ons afraid of losing their Georgia jerseys. His preparation and attention to detail is so relentless, the extra time Georgia gets to prepare for College Football Playoff games feels like an unfair advantage to opponents.
All of these facts make it that much more stunning that Smart either can鈥檛 or won鈥檛 stop the steady stream of driving related problems in his program. If he could go back in time, back to the first incident he shrugged off, back to the first few he ignored, I bet Smart would play this a lot smarter. He failed to address a problem in his program, and now, it鈥檚 become a plague. Georgia is more vulnerable on the highways than the gridiron.
Which brings us back to Drinkwitz.
The recent arrest of safety Phillip Roche is not a program-derailing development, but what it does absolutely present is an opportunity for Drinkwitz to send a clear and direct signal to his team. Most college football coaches would be wise to adopt as much of the Kirby Smart playbook as possible 99% of the time. Here鈥檚 the 1% of the time when it鈥檚 better to do the complete opposite.
Roche wasn鈥檛 rolling through stop signs and failing to slow down to a crawl soon enough in school zones. He was clocked zooming at triple-digit speeds between 40 and nearly 50 mph over highway speed limits. He struck another vehicle while following it too closely in St. Charles, according to one citation. He鈥檚 fortunate he didn鈥檛 seriously injure (or worse) himself or someone else. That he failed to appear for at least eight court appearances, according to reporting by Post-Dispatch Mizzou beat writer Eli Hoff, suggests Roche has not learned much from his scrapes with the law.
This is where a coach can and should come in. If Roche values his roster spot on Mizzou鈥檚 team more than moonlighting as a NASCAR driver, this should be the last driving-related incident he creates. If his need for speed is worth sacrificing his Tigers football career, then his Tigers football career should end. Simple.
Shrugging this stuff off, or letting it slide, is where coaches, even great ones, start to slip. It doesn鈥檛 matter what other players did in the past. It doesn鈥檛 matter what may have been overlooked before. End it now before it gets worse. If you have to make an example by dismissing a player who doesn鈥檛 answer his wakeup call, so be it.
Let Roche decide if he wants to be an example of a player who figured things out or an example of one who did not. But don鈥檛 let dodged disasters go by without proactively minimizing the likelihood of more. Because eventually the disaster may not be dodged.
As strange as it seems to those of us who are not college football players with fast cars and a tendency to feel unstoppable on and off the field, a coach who sets a tone of intolerance toward dangerous decision-making, then backs it up, can make a bigger difference than speed-limit signs and even citations. It鈥檚 why it鈥檚 so hard to believe Smart has done everything within his considerable power to stop the preventable problem now threatening his program and its community.
Drinkwitz and his fellow coaches would be smart to get as tough on lawless driving as they are on, say, skipped practices and missed tackles. Fast.