UGA Football's Carson Beck Dealt with Months of "Pain" | Now "The Sky's the Limit"
ATHENS - It took UGA Football just shy of four hours to blowout UAB 56-7 in early 2021. It took Carson Beck nearly four months to get over it.
After spending the week at practice guiding the first-string offense for the No. 2-ranked Dawgs, Beck was told the Friday night before kickoff with the Blazers that Stetson Bennett would start over him.
Beck was floored.
“I didn’t handle it well at all,” he told Dawg Post. “I thought it was me until then. That was tough - really tough.”
Instead of replacing an injured J.T. Daniels, Beck would backup Bennett for the contest with the Blazers. It was a role reversal for the two. Bennett had been told that summer that he would not be Daniels’ backup - that Beck would be in that role.
Lots was going on at the same time for the Bulldogs. Georgia’s meddling offensive performance during a 10-3 season-opening win over No. 3 Clemson was one thing. Another was the fact that Daniels could hardly throw the ball down the field without significant paint - limiting what Georgia could do significantly.
Something had to change because there was no telling how long Daniels could or would be out. The USC transfer had missed significant time in two previous seasons of college football - one in Los Angeles, and the other in Athens after he arrived in 2020.
Kirby Smart and the Bulldogs’ staff decided two things: The program would rest Daniels for the UAB game, and it would hold a competition that week for the starting job between Bennett and Beck.
No one thought Bennett would win the job. He was up and down in 2020. Then he got hurt and lost his job to Daniels at the end of that season. Nearly everyone anticipated that Beck would start. Then the competition in practice began.
“Stetson played his ass off during the week,” former UGA offensive coordinator Todd Monken told Dawg Post of the Dawgs’ preparations for UAB. “You rarely have a situation where you are giving guys a second chance. It wasn’t close. It was obvious that we were going with Stetson. It was obvious that Stetson had outplayed Carson.”
Bennett took it from there. The former walk-on had a record-setting performance against UAB, and the rest is history. The next time Daniels was hurt - two weeks later at the end of first quarter of the Vanderbilt game - the job was Bennett’s to lose.
He never lost it, and only lost one game the rest of his time as the starting quarterback at Georgia.
Meanwhile, the UAB game was the longest 24 hours Beck has had as a college football player. He concluded that game going 4 of 10 for 88 yards with a touchdown and interception.
"I was ready so start - so hyped. I was like: ‘I am about to start my first game. Let’s go!’” Beck admitted. “I did not perform the way I wanted to. I was not mature enough to handle the information of not starting.”
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Beck was given information he didn’t want to hear - perhaps information he didn’t believe was correct. He followed that up with the worst performance of his college career. He wanted to get out of the locker room as fast as possible after the game.
“I went home. I didn’t talk to anybody. I was very upset,” he said. The pain lingered: “For a lot of the season I felt sorry for myself. I didn’t handle it well at all.”
By the end of the season the public had given up or forgotten about Beck. After the win over UAB Bennett went on to lead UGA to its first national title since 1980.
“I am not going to lie: That was a very pivotal point for me as not only a person, but as a quarterback,” Beck said. "It was a reality check for me. I think it was a big turning point in my career. I realized that maybe I was not ready. Maybe I am not the player that I think I am. There is a lot of improvement that needs to happen. My mindset changed after that game. That experienced sucked in the moment, but it has made me into what I am now. In the moment I took a deep dive into myself. I grew through that. I think I matured a lot due to that situation. I wouldn’t be the person or quarterback I am today if that situation didn’t happen.”
BECK’S FRONT ROW SEAT TO HISTORY AT UGA
Beck’s arrival at UGA was preceded with some of the usual back and forth that goes with today’s recruiting world. Although he had committed to play baseball at Florida as a high school freshman, Beck realized he wanted to play football in college. He picked Nick Saban and Alabama in the summer of 2018 before backing away from the Tide in early 2019. He then settled on Kirby Smart and the Bulldogs in early March 2019.
Beck won a state title in Florida’s largest high school classification as a junior at Jacksonville’s Mandarin High School. He arrived in Athens in the winter of 2020, and that’s when perhaps the wildest three years in UGA Football history started.
Beck had a front-row seat for all of it.
After three years of starting, UGA QB Jake Fromm curiously left Athens with a season of eligibility remaining. His departure left the program in a bit of a scramble. Beck had just signed. The cycle before that D’Wan Mathis enrolled at UGA. The Bulldogs also had former walk-on Stetson Bennett IV.
The inexperience of that trio left a lot to be desired. Kirby and company figured they needed someone at quarterback who had been at least a starter in major college football. Bennett was the only quarterback on the roster with starting experience… at Jones County Junior College in Mississippi.
Enter Wake Forest transfer Jamie Newman. Suddenly the college football world was buzzing about what Newman could do at UGA. PFF declared Newman is “the clear-cut best quarterback in the SEC”. Having spent time as an analyst for the ACC Network, former UGA coach Mark Richt raved about Newman.
Then COVID hit. Then JT Daniels transferred to Georgia. Then it was unclear if a 2020 season of college football would exist. It was one thing after another from March 2020 until the decision in the late summer that the SEC would, in fact, play football in the fall.
Then Newman opted out of the 2020 season (and apparently football in general). Like the rest of college football, Georgia was all over the place. Uncertainty was king. The person assumed to not just start at UGA, but he one of the better quarterbacks in the SEC and perhaps the country, would not play that fall.
It was presumed that Newman left because of Daniels, but what was the actual reason still seems foggy.
"It’s not like Jamie had lost the job, but he hadn't won it, either,” said one insider with a very good grasp on the situation told Dawg Post at that time after Newman’s decision to leave. “Maybe that was part of it. I know that he was trying to get the playbook down, and that's not easy because Todd's system is complicated. I mean, it really is pro style."
UGA was barreling towards what was presumed to be the start of the 2020 season, and the starting quarterback spot had not been figured out. Daniels had been cleared by the NCAA to play, but not by doctors.
“I am under the assumption that that is going to happen, but that is not my decision,” Kirby told reporters of Daniels being cleared to play in the summer.
UGA quarterbacks were falling by the wayside. Carson Beck had gone from being somewhat of an afterthought to being very much in the competition to start at Arkansas for UGA’s 2020 season opener.
“It’s a catch-22 here if you’re calling plays designed for a certain quarterback, and you’ve got certain styles. JT Daniels, Carson Beck and D’Wan Mathis are all different quarterbacks,” Kirby told reporters one Saturday before the season. “Right now, we’re trying to figure out what they can do. To only call certain things that maybe fit D’Wan or just fit JT or just fit Carson isn’t fair.”
One insider had this take on the the race to start at quarterback at the time:
“Mathis might have the best talent, but he's going to have to fully grasp the system. Beck is probably the best overall thrower. JT has the most experience, and (the coaching staff) really values experience.”
JUNKYARD DAWGS TRI-BLEND T-SHIRT
After the first scrimmage of the season former UGA QB Aaron Murray said Beck shined.
“To me the guy that looked the best yesterday of all of the quarterbacks was Carson Beck,” Murray said at the time. “Lucky for him he was going against the No. 2 defense - not that vaunted No. 1 defense that UGA is going to be able to put out there. He looked really comfortable. Big strong arm. He, too, just like D’wan, made plays both inside and outside the pocket. He’s someone I am interested to watch over these next few years - how his development takes off within this system.”
Former UGA All-American DL David Pollack proclaimed that Mathis could throw a football “through a car wash, and not get it wet.”
Two weeks before the start of the Arkansas game word started trickling out - Mathis was making his move. One reason? Daniels had not been cleared by doctors to play. That wouldn’t happen until the week before the Auburn game in early October.
So unbeknownst to the rest of the world, while four quarterbacks would travel to Fayetteville, only three quarterbacks were physically cleared to play. Mathis would start, but Kirby told reporters that a rotation of multiple quarterbacks “could” happen during that game.
The debacle that was the first half of the 2020 Arkansas saw the Dawgs losing to lowly Arkansas. The Bulldogs struggled to get Mathis situated. Georgia ended the first quarter with only 33 total yards, five penalties, an interception in the red zone and three three-and-outs. The offense wasn’t moving. Former UGA QB D.J. Shockley was on the call for the SEC Network that day in Arkansas, and said Kirby had no choice - something had to change.
"You go through the first two or three series, and things just didn’t look smooth,” Shockley told Dawg Post of Georgia’s offense in the first half. “They didn’t look like they had been practicing in camp. Mathis—just looked like he didn’t feel comfortable.”
Georgia’s defense was holding on, but the offense would have to do something. It was stuck in the mud.
"They were trying to move him around and change the look for him. Simple stuff like a bad snap here, or a dropped snap, threw his rhythm off,” Shockley said of Mathis. “If he was a second behind you could see or tell that he wasn’t as comfortable with the speed of the game yet. There is a different speed in practice than in the game. I don’t think people understand how big of a difference it is. He had not adapted to the speed of the game just yet. As a guy who has played the position and knows what that’s like — you could tell things were moving so fast for him.”
“We felt like we needed to change some things up,” Kirby told reporters after the game. “I don't know how many drives we were into with D’Wan. It felt like five, maybe six. I don't know how many total it was before we went with Stetson. We just thought it would give us some energy.”
Beck, who could have been presumed to be the backup in that situation, had been jumped by Bennett. The former walk-on took full advantage of the situation - using his arms and legs to fast forward Georgia’s offense that day to a win. A week later Bennett looked impressive during UGA’s 27-6 win over No. 7 Auburn Between the Hedges.
It was Bennett’s job until he was injured up 14-0 in the first half against the Gators. That’s when the musical chairs that was 2020 at quarterback hit in high gear. Mathis had started and Bennett replaced him in Fayetteville. Bennett had started, gotten hurt, and Mathis replaced him in Jacksonville. Then the Dawgs had a week off because the Missouri game for that week was postponed. That gave the staff an extra week to get J.T. Daniels ready to be the program’s new starter.
He threw for nearly 400 yards against State and locked down the starting job the rest of the way that season and beyond. Only Daniels’ injury at the start of the 2021 season sidetracked what would have been him (presumably) starting the rest of his career at Georgia.
Daniels never lost a game at UGA as a starting quarterback. But once he lost his job, he never got it back. All the while, Beck’s goal was to capture that job to start with. And that started with grinding things out on the scout team against what would become one of the best defenses in college football history.
“When I was down on scout team I was looking at the defensive line, and it was Travon Walker, Jordan Davis, Devonte Wyatt. The linebackers were Quay Walker and Nakobe Dean. I can keep going - you know all of the names,” he told Dawg Post. "I am 18 years old playing against these guys who are first-round talents. One of them was the first overall pick. That was the biggest thing for my development."
WAITING IN THE WINGS
The confetti fell as Kirby’s right arm wrapped around Carson Beck’s neck. Beck had just taken another one-yard loss by kneeling to salt away another win. It was had the final snap to wrap up No. 1 UGA Football’s 65-7 win over No. 3 TCU in the College Football Playoff National Championship Game.
But the end of the 2023 season saw no confetti for Beck and the Dawgs. Georgia’s final win of the season - a 63-3 destruction of No. 5 Florida State at the Orange Bowl - didn’t have confetti, either. After all the game wasn’t a College Football Playoff game. It was just another Orange Bowl.
That won’t be the case this season. The Orange Bowl is the site of one of the two College Football Playoff semifinal games - as it was when Beck was a backup quarterback during Georgia’s 2021 run to win it all.
This year, a trip to the Orange Bowl would be a good thing for Beck and the Dawgs. This year, Beck could stamp his legacy with a national title of his own. This year could be very different than last for Beck and the Dawgs.
The Bulldogs will likely enter the 2024 season as the No. 1 team in the country again. Beck returns along with the bulk of the Dawgs’ offensive line. Georgia returns most of its starting defenders from the 2023 season as well. In addition, Kirby, Mike Bobo and Glenn Schumann are also back for another run at the title that eluded them all in 2023.
Georgia winning it all in 2024 as the likely top-ranked team in the country as well as being the betting favorite would hardly be a surprise. But Beck has been around long enough to know that anything goes in college football.
“It has been a long journey, and it hasn’t always been super easy,” he told Dawg Post. “Those first three years were really tough.”
It took nearly four games at the start of the 2023 season for Beck to show what he could do for the Dawgs. The come-from-behind 27-20 win at Auburn was a springboard for Beck.
“I think that was a big growing moment for me,” Beck said. “It was a big stepping stone to who I was going to become.”
Auburn jumped the Bulldogs - getting out to a 10-0 lead in the first quarter. It would be one of those days at Jordan-Hare Stadium for UGA - rowdy, wild and difficult. The Deep South’s Oldest Rivalry was in full force.
“That atmosphere is insane. It is absolutely ridiculous,” Beck said.
He and the Dawgs would have to claw their way back after the slow start, and after the Tigers took a 17-10 lead right out of the gates to start the second half.
“We had to face adversity in that game,” Beck remembered. “I threw a pick on the second drive I think. I missed a couple of throws early. We had a crucial turnover, and they went down and scored at the beginning of the half.”
Beck, who had been leaning on Sedrick Van Pran to be the vocal leader for the offense until that day, had a message for his teammates during the struggle at Auburn.
“It was like: “Hey, let’s step up and man up. Let’s make this happen right now, or we are going to lose this game,’” Beck said.
Tied at 20, Beck took the Bulldogs on a seven-play, 75-yard drive that ended with Brock Bowers’ 40-yard touchdown, which was the game winner.
“That game was a turning point for my season for sure,” he said.
Beck seemingly took off from there. His 389 yards and four touchdowns against No. 20 Kentucky was the kickoff to the rest of the season. That run included wins over No. 12 Missouri, No. 9 Ole Miss, No. 21 Tennessee and a win over the Gators in his hometown.
“That game last year was probably the favorite game I played in,” he said of No. 1 Georgia’s 43-20 blowout of the Gators. “It was very surreal. I played in the Jags stadium when I was 11 for the city championship. Now, we got absolutely smoked in that game, which is beside the point. That was the last time I was able to play there. Running out the tunnel and looking around was a very emotional moment for me. It was very full circle to have grown up in Jacksonville, and finally got the opportunity to play in such a big rivalry game.”
Then came the SEC Championship Game and Nick Saban’s Alabama - a 27-24 loss. It was the third time in a row Kirby’s Dawgs lost to Bama in that game. Beck told the Athens Banner-Herald that he’s still bothered by the loss, which kept the Dawgs out of the College Football Playoff.
“It eats me alive, but it is what it is,” he said. “Obviously a big loss like that in such a big game, I mean, you're going to think about it.”
THE SKY’S THE LIMIT
Beck has no shortage of tattoos. Many of them are covered up by his clothing on gameday, but the one on his left leg is aspirational - a NASA shuttle with “Sky’s the Limit” in ink above the rocket-powered spacecraft blasting into space.
“As far as progressing and getting into where I want to be, there is no limit. So if you shoot for the sky, there is no ceiling,” he told Dawg Post. “I feel like that's kind of how I try to approach my game and myself as a person. If I say the sky is the limit - it's kind of self-explanatory. There isn't a limit. It's going to be never-ending progression. You're just constantly trying to chase that.”
With two national titles and a 50-4 record, Georgia has been the team of the decade so far in college football. The Bulldogs have reached heights the likes of which few programs have in the history of college football.
But at quarterback, one of the few things left to chase for Beck is a national title. The credit usually only goes to the starting quarterback for national titles - something Beck pointed out to former roommate Warren Brinson before 2023.
“I want my own. I want my own Natty,” Brinson said of Beck during an interview on the Players’ Lounge. “He's a grinder. He's the first QB in the building. The last two years you would see his truck parked out there. He's there getting notes. He's leaving last.”
That work didn’t result in a national title in 2023. Will it in 2024?
“The motivation for each season is separate from the last, and separate from the next. We are super focused on where we are right now,” Beck said of Georgia’s looming 2024 season that features road contests at Alabama, Texas and Ole Miss along with the usual rivalries as well as the season opener against Clemson.
“The standard we have is always going to be the standard,” Beck continued. “Coach Smart is always going to hold us to the standard. The way we approach it as a team is always going to be the same regardless of the outcome of the season before.”
Not much in college football has stayed the same since Beck enrolled at Georgia. NIL. The NCAA transfer portal. UGA’s back-to-back national titles. The addition of Texas and Oklahoma into the SEC. And the departure of Nick Saban from Alabama.
Things are different than they once were for Beck and the rest of college football.
“At the beginning I was so… I don’t want to say cocky, but naive to an extent of what I really was as a quarterback,” he told Dawg Post. “Everyone comes into college and thinks: ‘I am going to start as a freshman.’ You don’t start as a freshman. Next year: ‘I am going to start, right?’ The mind initially says: ‘I am getting out of here.’ I think if I would have done that it would have ultimately made me decline. I never would have realized where I was at. And I needed to improve in this area and this area and this area. I can’t tell you why it went there, but that’s how I was raised and built up. When something goes wrong look at yourself and see what the problem is. Then fix it from there.”
Will there be red and black confetti after Beck’s final college game? We are finxin’ to find out.