David Pollack reacts to Memphis coach Ryan Silverfield's shot at Georgia

Memphis head coach Ryan Silverfield made headlines last week when he took a shot at Georgia on his weekly radio show, pointing out that Bulldogs players are getting arrested for “driving 900 miles per hour over the speed limit is a weekly occurrence.” This was brought up when mentioning what a standard should NOT be for a program.

“Generally, on a Sunday afternoon when we meet with the team, we do two things,” Silverfield said. “We always start off with not our standard, always start out with a negative. And the not our standard is ‘Georgia wide receiver arrested for driving 900 miles per hour over the speed limit.’ That’s a weekly occurrence. So, that’s one we’ll show.”

Georgia alum and former NFL linebacker David Pollack did not quite take too kindly to these comments on the latest edition of the ‘See Ball Get Ball with David Pollack’ podcast. Pollack revealed that his first course of action if he were Kirby Smart would be to immediately schedule a game against Memphis.

“He was going for the local laugh, right?” Pollack said. “People are there and I’m impressing so I’m gonna say that right out. My comments to this would be get Josh Brooks on the phone (the Athletic Director) of Georgia and get me Memphis on the schedule. If I’m Kirby (Smart), I’d be like ‘get me Memphis on the schedule.’ I don’t care about what he said… fine. So be it. But Kirby’s not gonna do that. That’s not who he is and what he says. But he would say ‘If you wanna play and take care of business, I’ll take care of business.’ That would be my response.”

Georgia has dealt with a handful of off-field issues in recent history

Former Georgia wide receiver Nitro Tuggle was arrested in late March on charges of reckless driving and speeding, a misdemeanor. Tuggle is no longer with the program, entering the NCAA transfer portal around a month later. Now, he is up in Big Ten country playing for Barry Odom and the Purdue Boilermakers.

That is not the only one of recent times, though. Silverfield did not mention any specific name when making his point, but multiple Georgia players have been arrested due to car-related incidents. Head coach Kirby Smart even had to address the issue following Tuggle’s arrest.

“As far as the process we followed, it’s not been several months,” Smart said in March. “It’s been several years in terms of defensive driving courses, having players ride and learning how to drive, just like my two kids did, with a driver’s service. Josh Brooks has done a tremendous job meeting with every player. 

“We’ve had several speakers come in and we continue to educate, and we’re not gonna stop at that. It’s very unfortunate that one of those young men got his driver’s license within one month of that happening, at 18 or 19 years old. It’s amazing how many kids come to school without a driver’s license. There’s no excuse, but one of those things we will continue to educate and discipline our guys to try to correct it.”

On3’s Griffin McVeigh contributed to this article.