It has been reported by Rivals that two Georgia football players were arrested early this morning.
Third-string quarterback Blake Barnes, who is 21 years old, reportedly was booked for a violation of the open container ordinance and for furnishing alcohol to a minor. Starting tight end Tripp Chandler, who will turn 21 in December, allegedly was taken in for an open container violation and for the underage possession of alcohol.
Rivals reports that Barnes and Chandler both were booked approximately at 6:00 this morning. If this report is accurate, it's not too terribly difficult to figure out what went down.
The Athens open container ordinance is a nitpicky, selectively-enforced regulation imposed by folks who wish to preserve the pretense of a town-and-gown distinction in a city that would not exist had not the University of Georgia been chartered 222 years ago. A law that limits the rights of legal adults to purchase and consume alcohol until three years after they are eligible to vote, able to get married, and required to register for the draft obviously is based upon an enormous amount of cognitive dissonance.
That having been said, the law is the law and every student in the Classic City, whether athlete or otherwise, knows it. If the Rivals report is accurate---and, according to the Dawgbone, it has been echoed by several sources---two Bulldogs are staring down the barrel of suspensions at a time when the Red and Black need all the offensive firepower they can get.
Maybe we should have listened to what Nick Saban was trying to tell us. . . .
Go 'Dawgs!