ATHENS — Georgia quarterback Carson Beck is dealing with a UCL or ulnar collateral ligament injury on the inside of his right elbow, which is also his throwing arm.

Georgia put out an official statement announcing the news on Monday and noted that Beck and his family are seeking treatment options and that at this point there is no timetable for a return.

“Carson and Brett (Thorson) are both fierce competitors and extremely hard workers,” Georgia coach Kirby Smart said. “I’m confident they will attack their rehab with the same determination they exhibit in their daily habits. We will be here to support them every step of the way.”

Without seeing the MRI itself, it’s impossible to know the severity of the injury. But this type of injury is not uncommon in the sports world. Traditionally this is an injury that happens in baseball pitchers, but there is a recent example of it happening with a quarterback.

San Francisco 49ers quarterback Brock Purdy tore his UCL in the 2023 NFC Championship Game loss to the Philadelphia Eagles. Purdy was able to start the first game of next season for the 49ers.

Due to the throwing mechanics involved with throwing a football, the recovery time is not as drastic as it would potentially be for a baseball pitcher.

“Certainly different throwing mechanics when it comes to throwing a football versus throwing a baseball,” Travis Patterson, MD, an orthopedic surgeon with Northeast Georgia Physicians Group said in an interview with DawgNation. “There is also different levels of repetition and different levels of the amount of force required when throwing a football versus a baseball. There is less strain that the ulnar collateral ligament sees from a football quarterback. And so this is certainly not an injury that is talked about as much. It is usually more of a traumatic injury as in the setting of Carson Beck and having someone striking the arm as it is to a velocity and throwing type injury.”

In Purdy’s case, the ligament was completely torn. With Beck, the severity of the UCL injury is not publicly known.

There are levels to a UCL injury. A grade 1 injury is regarded as sprain of the ligament, while a grade 2 is a partial tear and a grade 3 is a complete tear.

As with there being different levels of severity, there are different lengths of recovery.

“There is a lot of variability with those types of injuries and timelines to recovery,” Patterson said. “Obviously the more significant the tear, the more time to recovery typically. If it is a grade 1 sprain of the ligament, it may be something that is back and feeling better in a matter of weeks. Whereas if it is partial tear or complete tear, we are generally looking at 6-12 weeks before that ligament has healed to a certain degree. And then more time added on to that for the recovery process and rebuilding strength.”

Patterson did add that there would be some legitimate concern if Beck tried to play through a grade 2 or grade 3 tear.

Fortunately for Georgia, the Bulldogs do have a couple of weeks for the injury to heal. Georgia is not slated to play again until Jan. 1, when it faces the winner of the Notre Dame-Indiana game in the Sugar Bowl. Should Georgia win that game, the Bulldogs would next be scheduled to play on Jan. 9.

In the event that Beck cannot go, Georgia would turn to Gunner Stockton. The Bulldogs did so in the SEC Championship game, with Stockton leading Georgia to a 22-19 victory.

Beck re-entered the game briefly on the final play to hand the ball off to Trevor Etienne for the game-winning touchdown. We’ll see if that ends up being the final play he makes in a Georgia uniform.