Freshman safety leaves Georgia

ATHENS — All indications are that safety Johnathan Abram, who started four games for Georgia as a freshman, has left the football team.

“Johnathan is not at Georgia,” a woman who identified herself as Abram’s mother said Monday afternoon during a brief phone conversation.

Monday was the first day of spring semester classes at UGA. It was not clear where Abram, who is from Columbia, Miss., was or if he was headed to another school.

Abram did not make the trip to Georgia’s bowl game for what then-interim head coach Bryan McClendon said were “personal issues.” McClendon is now at his new job at South Carolina, while new head coach Kirby Smart and (reported) incoming defensive coordinator/secondary coach Mel Tucker were preparing for Alabama’s national championship game on Monday.

Abram had 25 tackles this season, including a season-high five against Florida.

Last year Abram enrolled early at Georgia after being recruited to school by Jeremy Pruitt, the now-former defensive coordinator and secondary coach. The night that Mark Richt was fired, it was Abram who walked by the media and said, unprompted: “If the media wants to know anything, keep Pruitt.”

Pruitt took the defensive coordinator job at Alabama last month.