ATHENS — This is not the first time in Kirby Smart’s Georgia career that his quarterback has entered The World’s Largest Cocktail Party under some form of duress.
Whether it be Jake Fromm in 2018 or Stetson Bennett in 2021, Smart has seen his quarterback face plenty of questions going into Georgia’s biggest rivalry game.
Coming out of those two games in particular, the questions stopped. Fromm was flawless in the 2018 win over the Gators, while Nolan Smith made it very clear that Bennett was going to be Georgia’s quarterback moving forward.
Smart once again finds his team having to defend the play of its quarterback, albeit for a different reason. Unlike in 2018 or 2021, there is no Justin Fields or JT Daniels on the roster.
For Beck, he’s just not playing up to his own high-standard, which has welcomed in the idea that there is something off with the quarterback.
“I don’t think anything’s wrong with him. He hasn’t played perfect, but nobody does,” Smart said. “I’m very comfortable with where Carson is in terms of his leadership, his practice habits, the things we’re asking him to do. I think he’s doing a good job of those.”
Beck did open the door to some questioning when he spoke to reporters following Georgia’s 30-15 win over Texas. The senior quarterback was intercepted three times in that game. He’s now thrown eight interceptions in Georgia’s last four games.
“I was just off it felt like the entire game,” Beck said. “I think the fourth quarter, it really started to kick in for the most part, but I mean, I was just off. I mean, that’s obviously really difficult. I mean, not to say that games like that are going to happen, but, you know, plays, you know, I can’t control everything. I can control what I can control and I’ve got to go back and watch a film and I’ve got to get better. I’ve got to be better for this team.”
Smart didn’t go full Terrell Owens in defending Beck, but he did acknowledge why Beck would say something like that.
“Well, I think he’s gonna own that regardless. If you ask a kid that, they’re gonna say that he does need to play better,” Smart said. “We need to coach better, we need to execute better. We need the people around him to play better. That’s the ownership that a quarterback takes, and I wouldn’t expect him to answer any questions like that any other way.”
As every game seems to be for Beck nowadays, this coming one is significant for him. He is from Jacksonville, Fla., where Saturday’s game will be played. He was a one-time Florida baseball commit and very much flirted with the idea of playing football for Florida.
But he ended up at Georgia, a move that paid off for the talented quarterback. Beck told reporters last year that the game against Florida meant a lot to him personally. He responded by throwing for 315 yards and 2 touchdowns in a 43-20. Georgia was also without star tight end Brock Bowers in the game.
Beck has grown accustomed to playing through adversity. Some of that has been self-made this season. Beck had just six interceptions all of last season. The Georgia quarterback has already blown through that number this season.
Georgia asks a lot of Beck. He hasn’t always gotten the help he needed, whether it be poor offensive line play against Kentucky or drops against Texas.
And this Georgia team knows that while there are plenty of external questions when it comes to Beck, the Bulldogs know there is no one better to lead them into Saturday’s game against Florida.
“He does all the things he needs to do as a quarterback for us like checks or like making sure we’re in the right run or right protection,” wide receiver Arian Smith said. “I’m sure he was talking about things like he missed a throw or we missed a catch or something like that on offense, taking accountability because that’s the person he is. So I’d probably say nothing. We’ve just got to play better as an offense and be all 11 of us on the same page for that play to work.”
Jacksonville has a way of bringing out the best in Georgia quarterbacks. Beck could really use some of that in his second homecoming.
At least to show those outside the Georgia locker room that he can be the player he was promoted as prior to the 2024 season.
