Georgia
‘We need to do better’: Georgia football ranks last in FBS in latest NCAA graduation rates
WATCH: Kirby Smart and players after Georgia football Orange Bowl win
WATCH: Kirby Smart, Kendall Milton, Kamari Lassiter at postgame press conference after Georgia football Orange Bowl win on Dec. 30, 2023
The University of Georgia proclaims it is a powerhouse in academics and athletics.
The Georgia football team is certainly a perennial championship contender with back-to-back national titles in 2021 and 2022 and ranking as high as No. 3 after this season.
The program, though, is at the bottom of more than 130 FBS programs when it comes to the latest NCAA graduation rate metric.
Why is that?
More: Georgia football coach Kirby Smart on Nick Saban: ‘Nobody in this business works as hard’
More: Where Georgia football finished in final 2023 polls. No. 1 projections all around for 2024
Only three years earlier, the school trumpeted that UGA athletics set a record with an 87 percent Graduation Success Rate (GSR) across all of its teams with 25 full-time staff members who worked in their Student Services department at the Rankin Smith Academic Center and more than 100 tutors and mentors.
In 2015, it sent out a press release that mentioned Georgia football’s 73 percent GSR rate were among its teams rated in the top seven in the SEC.
“At the University of Georgia, we are committed to supporting the success of our student-athletes on the field of play but also — and more importantly — in the classroom and in life after graduation,” UGA President Jere Morehead said then.
In the latest GSR rate released in December, Georgia football posted a 41 GSR rate, lagging far behind others in the conference. LSU was next closest in the SEC at 69.
“It hits hard and we know we need to do better,” David Shipley, Georgia’s faculty athletic representative since 2010, said last week in an interview. “In a way, I think we saw this coming with that particular cohort… you had a coaching change.”
The current data reflects six-year graduation rates for those entering the school from 2013-16 which were the final three seasons under coach Mark Richt and the first season under Kirby Smart.
Football power Alabama came in at 93 and Florida at 92, trailing only Vanderbilt’s 95.
What Kirby Smart said about the Georgia football GSR rate
Among Power Five Conference schools, UCLA had the next lowest GSR after Georgia at 64.
Shipley said Georgia focuses on how it compares to other SEC schools and state rival Georgia Tech, which had an 88.
“Bottom line is we need to do better,” Shipley said. “Hopefully it will start showing up better in the next couple of years.”
Only FCS member Texas A&M Commerce was lower among NCAA schools at 39.
“There are a lot of factors that impact those numbers, some are in our control and some are not,” Smart said in a statement to the Athens Banner-Herald through an athletics spokesperson. “Our academic people do a great job with our players. We are very proud of the fact that we had 19 student-athletes eligible to wear the graduate patch on their chest during the Orange Bowl.”
The NCAA graduation success rate, unlike the federal rates required by the U.S. Department of Education, does not penalize schools whose athletes leave as transfers in good academic standing and counts transfers into their schools in the calculation.
“Since I have been the head coach, we have had five players return to the University and finish their degree and we have four former players enrolled in classes this spring,” Smart said. “We understand we have to continue to improve in this area and we will.”
Sedrick Van Pran-Granger, who entered the program in 2020 and is an early-round NFL draft prospect this year after three years as a starting center, is one semester away from earning his degree.
“I can definitely say this, I think everybody in that building pushes guys to get degrees,” he said. “I’ve heard Coach Smart say multiple times football doesn’t last forever. Obviously, some guys may not take that as serious just because you’re currently playing. There’s definitely a focus for guys to get their degrees. … At the end of the day, it’s your own personal choice. If you want to take the money for football and you want to be an entrepreneur, that doesn’t mean you’re a bad person because you didn’t get a degree.”
How Georgia athletics is addressing improving the GSR rate
In 2019, the Georgia Athletic Association stepped up its continuous academic progress monitoring and intervened more to keep athletes on track academically. The focus became more on frontloading credits rather than a minimum credit model.
Shipley said former deputy director for academics Magdi El Shahawy put an emphasis then on players taking 15 credits per semester and if a player struggles, he could drop a class and still be at 12.
“I think you could say the philosophy before is what can we do to boost GPAs but maybe what we’ve decided now is what’s more important is raise those graduation rates and the emphasis on the credit hours per term,” Shipley said.
Georgia had 34 players who did not graduate during the 4-year cohort, of which 13 of those arrived after Smart was hired in December of 2015
“We have worked hard to be thoughtful and intentional about implementing strategies that will hopefully lead to better GSR outcomes,” athletic director Josh Brooks said in a statement. “But it should be made clear that GSR is not the most reliable indicator of our student-athletes’ academic success — our efforts are not limited to a six-year window. Graduation along with providing targeted, differentiated and informed support for our student-athletes continues to be the goal. We have made significant progress in this area and acknowledge there is more work to be done to ensure that our vision is realized.”
It was 10 years ago that Georgia was recognized by the American Football Coaches Association along with Rice, Stanford and Tulane for a 100 percent graduation rate for members of the 2006 freshman class.
Why graduation still matters for some Georgia Bulldogs pursuing NFL careers
Running back Kendall Milton, the Orange Bowl MVP, played four seasons for the Bulldogs and graduated in December with a degree in consumer economics.
“That was something I kind of set before I even committed to a school,” he said. “Education was a very important aspect to me just because for me I know football is going to end at some point and I have my goals, things I want to do in terms of business and certain things in my career. I feel like having my degree in higher education was going to be kind of a foot ahead, a kind of big step in reaching that.”
Milton said both his parents and a brother have college degrees so he “kind of just felt that was mandatory. There was no other option,” he said. “Even if it was a situation where I went out in three years, I would have 100 percent come back and got my degree.”
Milton said graduating probably meant more to his mother than anything else he accomplished at Georgia.
Wide receiver Marcus Rosemy-Jacksaint, who entered Georgia in 2020 and is now an NFL draft prospect, said he’d be the first from his family to get a college degree. He said he has one semester to go.
“It’s always been a big deal for me,” he said. “To do something that nobody in my family ever did.”
Shipley said experienced counselors are working with Georgia players and he think incrementally the GSR rates can go up.
Georgia said nine teams, including football (2.83), received their highest fall GPA in 2022.
“We try to identify who’s having a problem at an earlier stage,” Shipley said. “We’re in person for counseling sessions and tutoring sessions. We didn’t do that for a couple of years (during the pandemic) and I think in person is better than doing those things online.”
He said players moving on to the NFL without completing their degrees has an impact, but Georgia’s not alone in that.
“That’s not unique to us,” he said. “Alabama has a lot of kids go to the draft, so does LSU. We’re not the only school that’s had great success in the NFL draft so that’s not an excuse.”
Van Pran-Granger said even if he has a long NFL career, he wants to get his college degree because it’s important to his mother.
“I definitely want to honor her and make sure I get that for her,” he said.
Shipley said he speaks to Morehead about particular teams underachieving in the classroom.
“He’s aware of it and he wants us to improve,” said Shipley, a UGA law school professor since 1998. “There’s no doubt about it. Campus-wide, he promotes, touts our great first to second year retention rate, our four-year graduation rate, our six-year graduation rate, points of pride. President Morehead very much wants our athletics to be much closer to those numbers than they are now. With most sports, we’re doing fine.”
Milton said running backs coach Dell McGee told players, “it’d be honestly dumb to come to a school and a let the school use you without getting anything out of it. That’s something he’s been saying since my freshman year.”
Georgia
With voting over, Georgia’s election to replace Marjorie Taylor Greene could be test of Trump’s influence
Polls have closed in the Georgia 14th Congressional District special election to elect who will replace Marjorie Taylor Greene in Congress.
The seat has been vacant since January, when Greene resigned following a monthslong public fight with President Trump over foreign policy issues and the release of documents involving the Jeffrey Epstein case. A week before she announced her plans to resign, Mr. Trump said he would support a primary challenge against her.
Twenty-two candidates filed to run for the seat, but the number dropped to 17 candidates — 12 Republicans, three Democrats, one Libertarian, and one independent — all of whom appeared on Tuesday’s ballot.
Among the top candidates are former District Attorney Clay Fuller, who was endorsed by Mr. Trump, former Republican state Sen. Colton Moore, and Democrat Shawn Harris, a retired Army brigadier general who lost to Greene in the 2024 race for the seat.
Harris has raised more than $4.3 million for the race, with about $290,000 in the bank.
Greene has declined to endorse anyone in the race.
Georgia voters enthusiastic to choose their representative
Voters in Rome, Georgia, said they expect to return and vote in what is likely to be a runoff election because of the number of candidates.
“Too many people that think they’re politicians — some I know personally that has no experience, that, you know, Washington would just swallow them up like it does most people,” one voter said.
“What I look for in a candidate is tell me your policies. That’s the problem that I have with both sides today,” another voter said. “They attack each other, they hate each other, and they don’t ever get around to telling you what their actual policies are.”
Despite voters saying they planned to return to the ballot box, Floyd County Republican Vice Chair David Guldenschuh said the complicated schedule had party heads worried.
“There’s real fatigue out there, and I sense and feel for them,” he said.
Still, Guldenschuh said he doesn’t feel like the crowded field would hurt the GOP’s chance to hold the seat that Greene once occupied.
“I think that, you know, we have an unusual situation here. We all appreciated and loved Marjorie. And when she and Trump had the falling out, we still supported both here in this district, even though they weren’t getting along very well. And still are, as I understand,” he said. So I do know that this district is very solid conservative, and from Floyd County north, it’s really conservative. So I don’t see a big change going on now.”
Vincent Mendes, the chair of the county’s Democratic Party, expected Harris to get to the runoff, but said it would take effort to flip the seat.
“We will have to work our butts off to make him win if he gets to a runoff, but that’s how we should treat every single election,” Mendes said.
A local race with national implications
CBS News Political Director Fin Gómez said this special election is about more than just one seat in Congress. It’s being watched by politicians across the state and around the nation as an early indicator of where the Republican Party and its voters stand right now.
Gómez said this race could offer one of the first real tests of Mr. Trump’s influence within the party, with the president throwing his support behind Fuller.
The results could show whether the Republican base is still fully aligned with him after his rift with Greene.
The key question, according to Gómez: Does the president still have the influence that he did back in 2024?
“I do think that if Clay Fuller does well, even if he doesn’t clear the threshold that’s needed to avoid a runoff, I think that bodes well for the president, because that means Republican voters are still adhering to what the president says, and it shows the influence that that the president still has on the Republican Party, including in northwest Georgia,” he told CBS News Atlanta.
If another candidate, such as Moore, pulls off a win, it could signal the Republican base isn’t always following the president’s lead.
“If Fuller does not when I think it would surprise a lot of the Trump faithful who really adhere to who he supports in these type of elections, but if, let’s say, if it doesn’t go Fuller’s way and Moore picks off this win, I think what you are seeing is that the base might be a little more unpredictable, similar to what we saw perhaps in 2010.”
Special election marks start of busy campaign stretch
With how crowded the field is, it is very likely that this will be only the first step to choosing Greene’s replacement. Georgia’s special election rules require a candidate to win a majority of votes. If that threshold is not met, the top two candidates will go on to the April 7 runoff.
Whoever eventually wins the seat will serve out the rest of Greene’s term — a relatively short time in office. If they want to remain in the seat, they’ll have to run again in the May 19 party primaries. That race could possibly go to a party runoff, which would take place on June 16. The winners of the primaries will advance to the general election in November.
Last week, 10 Republicans, including Fuller and Moore, qualified to run in November’s election for a full two-year term. Harris also qualified, the sole Democrat who did in what has been rated as the most Republican-leaning district in Georgia by the Cook Political Report.
Mr. Trump carried the 14th Congressional District with 68% of the vote in the 2024 election, with Greene receiving over 64%. Republicans want that rightward trend to continue in the district. Democrats are hoping that the potential GOP infighting and crowded field could help them secure a surprise electoral win, shrinking the already-narrow margins in the U.S. House of Representatives.
Republicans currently control 218 House seats to the Democrats’ 214.
People cheer for President Trump en route to his speaking engagement at the Coosa Steel Corporation on Feb. 19 in Rome, Ga. Trump delivered remarks on the economy and affordability as the state started voting to replace the seat vacated by former Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene.
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ATLANTA — Voters in Northwest Georgia are choosing who should replace former Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene. Voting closes in the district’s special election on Tuesday night.
The election will test the weight of President Trump’s endorsement of one of the candidates in a crowded race. Some voters say the president’s choice is not who they think would best support the conservative MAGA movement championed by both Trump and Greene.
Greene resigned at the beginning of this year, leaving Georgia’s 14th Congressional District without representation in Congress — and slimming the GOP’s majority in the House — following a bitter split with Trump.
Greene rose to prominence over five years in office as a strong ally of Trump, bombastically attacking critics and pushing the MAGA movement’s “America First” policy. Yet the two had a very public clash after she pushed for the release of documents related to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. Greene has also been sharply critical of Trump’s actions abroad, saying he has strayed from his promises to focus domestically.
With Trump now in the second year of his second term, other high-profile spats with key parts of his MAGA coalition have erupted over his administration’s handling of other issues, including sweeping tariffs, immigration policy and more. More recently, rifts have emerged over the war with Iran.
Some, like Greene, argue that though Trump helped create the “America First” worldview, he is not the sole arbiter of what it looks like.
Most of the GOP candidates in the special election have said they want to focus on Trump’s priorities and the concerns of their district, rather than become headlines themselves — an approach they say Greene embraced in her public disputes with Democrats and even with members of her own party.
“The difference between Marjorie and I is I will not use the press to become a celebrity,” Republican Star Black said during a candidate forum on Feb. 16. “I will use the press to actually show what I have done — the accomplishments,”
Trump has endorsed Clay Fuller, a district attorney in northwest Georgia for the state’s Lookout Mountain Judicial Circuit. He emphasized his support last month during a visit to Rome, part of the state’s 14th District, where he held a rally to tout his administration’s economic policy.
Fuller called himself a “MAGA warrior” at the event.
Republican congressional candidate Clay Fuller (left) shakes hands with President Trump as he arrives on Air Force One at Russell Regional Airport on Feb. 19 in Rome, Ga.
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“I really like him,” said rally attendee Jill Fisher. “I think he’s a strong candidate, seems like a very nice family man with some great values. And I think he’ll add a lot to Congress.”
Highlighting Fuller’s military service as an Air Force veteran, an ad for his campaign says, ” ‘America First’ is the story of his life.”
Fuller faces several other GOP candidates in the primary, including former state Sen. Colton Moore. Moore won elections for the state Legislature in the district before and is considered one of the most right-leaning lawmakers at the state level.
“I’m 100% pro-Trump,” Moore declared in his campaign announcement video.
He’s made a few headlines of his own. Last year, Moore was arrested for attempting to enter the House chambers in Atlanta to attend the State of the State address by GOP Gov. Brian Kemp. Moore argued he had a constitutional right to enter the chamber. Moore had been banned from entering the chambers by the state’s Republican House Speaker Jon Burns for disparaging comments he made about a late Georgia lawmaker at his portrait unveiling.
Moore’s record matters for some GOP voters even more than Trump’s endorsement. Less Dunaway, 14th district voter, says he’s a strong supporter of Trump, but thinks Moore will do a better job carrying out the president’s agenda than Trump’s own pick.
“He actually knows what he’s doing,” Dunaway said of Moore. “He was a state representative, a state senator. He was the first one to fight the people over the 2020 election in Georgia.”
Moore was one of a group of GOP state lawmakers who called on lawmakers to investigate or impeach Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis after she charged Trump and others with trying to overturn the 2020 election in Georgia, when Trump and his allies pushed baseless claims of widespread election fraud.
Fuller insists Trump made the right choice in supporting his bid.
“I think they’re looking for someone to carry President Trump’s banner, support his agenda, and fight for him on Capitol Hill,” Fuller told Georgia Public Broadcasting last month.
Still some Republicans who attended the February rally left undecided.
“I don’t just blindly follow what [Trump] says,” said Clay Cooper of Rome.
Still, Cooper said that Trump’s endorsement means he will give Fuller more thought. “[Fuller is] someone that [Trump] thinks aligns very much with his messaging, with his actions, so that certainly weighs in,” Cooper said.
Unlike a partisan primary, all the candidates — Republicans, Democrats and third party candidates — will be on the same ballot for voters in the special election. If no one gets over 50% of the vote, the two top vote-getters regardless of party will advance to a runoff on April 7.
Follow the results below as polls close on Tuesday at 7 p.m. ET.
NPR’s Padmananda Rama contributed to this report.
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