Excessive speed listed as cause of fatal UGa SUV wreck

Georgia football player Devin Willock was not wearing a seat belt when he was ejected from the vehicle in a weekend crash that killed him and a recruiting staff member, police said.

A police report released Tuesday listed excessive speed on a road with a 40 mph limit as one of the primary causes of the crash.

The wreck occurred at 2:45 a.m. Sunday in Athens, less than two miles from the university campus. A few hours earlier, the Bulldogs held a parade through town and a ceremony at Sanford Stadium honoring their second straight national championship.

The 20-year-old Willock, an offensive lineman for the Bulldogs, was pronounced dead at the scene. The driver of the vehicle, 24-year-old recruiting analyst Chandler LeCroy, died shortly after being taken to a hospital.

Two other people were in the car, including offensive lineman Warren McClendon, who had just announced Saturday he will enter the NFL draft.

Like LeCroy, McClendon was wearing a shoulder and lap restraint while seated in the right front passenger seat, police said. He sustained only minor injuries, which the report from Athens-Clarke County police described as a laceration in the middle of his head.

Another member of the Georgia football staff, Victoria Bowles, was hospitalized with multiple, serious injuries. She was sitting in the backseat with Willock and not wearing a seat belt, the report said.

Police investigators said the 2021 Ford Expedition “failed to negotiate a left curve, resulting in the vehicle striking the curb with its front passenger tire and leaving the roadway on the west shoulder.”

The SUV struck a Georgia Power pole and another utility pole, slicing them in half, before striking a tree on the rear passenger quarter panel. That sent the vehicle spinning in a clockwise direction before it slammed into another tree on the driver’s side — where both LeCroy and Willock were sitting.

“This caused the vehicle to rotate counter-clockwise prior to achieving final rest against an apartment building,” the report said, adding that a vehicle parked in front of a unit also was struck by the out-ofcontrol SUV.

The report said no alcohol or drug test was conducted on LeCroy, though the investigation was continuing. Investigators did not give an estimated speed, nor did they know the driver’s condition at the time of the crash.

The report also listed other, unspecified factors as contributors.