Carson Beck is the face of the 2024 Dawgs in more ways than one.
Georgia’s much-doubted, much-cussed quarterback had taken the brunt of the criticism this season over the inconsistent offensive play that led the College Football Playoff committee to rank the team No. 12, on the edge of elimination.
Beck also drew considerable flak after a TV camera shot in the waning moments of the embarrassing loss to Ole Miss caught him smiling as a teammate tried to cheer him up.
He only cares about his Lamborghini and his social media-influencer girlfriend, outraged fans griped.
But Saturday’s huge come-from-behind 31-17 win over No. 7-ranked Tennessee — in what amounted to a playoff elimination game — was a different story. As head coach Kirby Smart noted after the game, Beck had lost one of his best receivers when Dillon Bell left the game with an injury mid-game and yet “he never flinched.”
Instead, Beck played perhaps the best game of his career in bringing the Dawgs back from a 10-0 first-quarter deficit, as he completed 25 of 40 passes for 347 yards and 2 touchdowns and was his team’s second-leading rusher, adding 32 yards and another touchdown on three key runs.
His passing numbers would have been even gaudier had Georgia receivers not dropped several passes, as they are wont to do this year.
Oh, and Beck had no turnovers.
As an excited Smart summed it up immediately after the game: “How about Carson Beck tonight!”
At the end of Saturday’s game Between the Hedges — Georgia’s eighth win in a row over the Vols, all by double digits — there was Georgia’s quarterback again, smiling that wide grin for an ABC camera.
This time, I doubt any Dawgs fans objected.
The turnaround engineered by Beck and Georgia Offensive Coordinator Mike Bobo was even more remarkable considering the Dawgs got off to another of those slow starts that have plagued them this season. Facing a highly ranked and aggressive defensive front for the second week in a row, Georgia’s offensive output in the first 15 minutes of the game mostly was a frustrating series of three three-and-outs due to a continuation of the dropped and batted-down passes that have been a problem all season.
Meanwhile, the defense again was tackling poorly, getting gashed by opposing runners and leaving Tennessee receivers wide open. The UGA defenders gave up an early touchdown before finally stiffening and holding the Vols to a field goal on their second scoring drive.
Then, on the final play of the first quarter, Beck connected with Dominic Lovett on a 38-yard pass on 3rd-and-8, and from there the Georgia quarterback seemed to gain confidence as he ran for another first down, breaking a couple of tackles and diving shoulder-first into a defender, instead of taking the safer quarterback slide.
The first of a pair of Beck touchdown throws to tight end Oscar Delp (who ended up catching 4 balls for 56 yards during the game) got things going for the Dawgs.
Then the roaring 93K-plus home crowd, most of which was wearing black as part of an unofficial fan-led “blackout” of Sanford Stadium — while the team wore its usual red — did its part and caused a false start by the Vols, ultimately leading to a Tennessee punt. (The crowd forced another UT false start later in the game.)
Beck got the Dawgs moving again on Georgia’s next drive, though it wasn’t exactly smooth sailing. After a 23-yard completion to tight end Lawson Luckie, it looked like the Vols had recovered a Bell fumble on another play before video review ruled it an incomplete pass. Then, on the next play, Beck hit wideout Arian Smith, and Smith also fumbled after the catch — but then recovered the ball about 10 yards downfield, resulting in a 23-yard gain.
Finally, Beck hit Delp in the end zone again to give the Dawgs a 14-10 lead.
A subsequent long Tennessee touchdown run put the Vols back on top by 3 points and then, with less than 2 minutes left in the first half, Georgia drove once more — again with a key third-down run by Beck — and tied it up 17-17 with a field goal as the clock ran out.
It felt good to have the Dawgs not trailing at the half, though as Smart noted to ABC at the break, the Georgia defense needed to do a better job of tackling, adding: “We didn’t do a good job in that half stopping the run.”
They did much better in the second half. Tennessee running back Dylan Sampson did end up with 101 of the Vols’ 152 yards rushing in the game, but the Georgia D held the Vols to no points in the third and fourth quarters while their offensive counterparts added another pair of touchdowns.
One of those scores came on an 87-yard Georgia drive that ate up 7:22 of the third quarter, with key plays being a 16-yard run by freshman tailback Nate Frazier (who started in place of the injured Trevor Etienne), a 16-yard completion to Smith and then, on 3rd-and-7 at the Tennessee 10, Beck running for the score himself, which gave the Dawgs a 24-17 lead. That marked the first time the Vols, who were holding opponents to an average 12.6 points per game, had given up more than 19 all season.
As for the final Georgia score, it came on another clock-eating drive in the fourth quarter that covered 92 yards and ate up 6:21, with three key catches by tight end Ben Yurosek and a 28-yard pass to receiver London Humphreys, who had to fight a defender for the ball, setting up a 2-yard Frazier TD run.
After the PAT following that score with 2:26 left in the game, a Vols player was seen jawing at a UGA lineman. The lineman just pointed at the scoreboard and stared back. Sweet.
For the night, Beck completed passes to 10 different receivers, with tight ends Yurosek and Delp combining for 9 receptions for 106 yards. Seven Bulldogs had at least 2 receptions and five Georgia players had 50 yards or more in receptions, an indication of what a good job Bobo and Beck did in distributing the ball.
The Dawgs finished with 453 yards of offense. And there were no short-field gimmes, either, with Georgia’s drives covering 75, 84, 87 and a season-long 92 yards.
A key factor in Georgia’s offensive success Saturday night was the offensive line play, which was dramatically improved from a week earlier, with no sacks allowed. And while the Dawgs still had only a modest 106 yards rushing (with three freshmen as running backs), Beck’s own runs played a big part in the win.
That seemed to delight the Georgia QB. He told ABC after the game: “I keep telling Coach I’m a dual threat and I can run, but he never lets me run.” Beck then smiled that smile again. “But he let me run a little bit tonight.”
On the other side of the ball, UT came in averaging 37.6 points a game and was held by the Georgia defense to just 17, including getting shut out in the second half for the second straight year.
The Vols had just 313 yards of offense, more than 150 below their average coming into the game. Jalon Walker had 2 of Georgia’s 5 sacks of Tennessee QB Nico Iamaleava, Chaz Chambliss also had a pair of sacks and Damon Wilson II picked up his second sack of the year.
The leading tacklers were Smael Mondon (8 plus a sack), KJ Bolden ( a career-high 8) and Walker (8 and a sack).
And, while the occasional needless penalty did get in the Dawgs’ way, including an offensive pass interference that wiped out a long reception and made it 1st-and-24, Georgia was helped by a subsequent yellow flag in that drive, as Tennessee was called for facemask on a 17-yard reception by Georgia freshman Nitro Tuggle (my new favorite name of a current Bulldog). That turned 2nd-and-24 at the Dawgs’ 15-yard line into 1st down at their 47.
Also, the Vols may have gotten away with one of the fake injuries that the league has banned — we’ll have to see if the SEC bothers to review that footage — but Tennessee got burned when it tried to delay the Dawgs with a defender deliberately slow-footing it off the field — only to draw a flag for illegal participation as their 12th man on the field.
Bottom line: The Dawgs delivered a major win with their backs against wall and beat another Top 10 team. Let’s hope the playoff committee takes note not just of that, but the tremendously difficult schedule this team has played. As things now stand, Georgia most likely won’t make the conference title game (probably a blessing in disguise), but if the Dawgs take care of UMass and Georgia Tech (the latter no gimme this year, as Miami found out), they’re probably going to make the cut of the 12-team playoff.
And as this team gets healthier, it will get even more dangerous and probably will be the team no one wants to meet in the early rounds of the playoff.
So, all in all, Georgia’s first home game in more than a month was a great night in Athens. And as with the game in Oxford a week earlier, there even were fireworks (set off before the game and at the beginning of the fourth quarter), a new wrinkle for UGA. The latter display did mean the teams had to endure smoky conditions for a few plays, but it wasn’t as bad as on that rainy night at Ole Miss and didn’t delay the game.
Also, for the second week in a row, there was a squirrel on the field — though, in this case, it wasn’t a rodent but Tennessee receiver Squirrel White. (Sorry, I couldn’t resist.)
Smart summed the evening up after the game: “Our kids showed resiliency, and I’m proud of them,” he said. “A week ago, for a couple of hours, we were dead and gone. People had written us off. It’s hard to play in this league week in and week out on the road. We’ve accumulated a tremendous amount of injuries, due to the schedule we’ve had, and it’s not going to get any easier. When you play the gauntlet we’ve played, it takes its toll.”
But with Saturday night’s win over the Vols (did I mention it’s the eighth in a row?), the Bulldogs now have won a school-record 29 consecutive home games dating to 2019, which leads the FBS.
Finally, we had a rare display of Smart’s sense of humor (yes, he has one!) in his post-game interview with the Bulldogs radio network’s DJ Shockley. Asked about the atmosphere at Sanford Stadium Saturday night, the Georgia coach said it was “probably the best atmosphere that I’ve ever been a part of for a game like this. The crowd was electric.”
He then added, impishly: “Only thing that would have made it better would have been if we’d had black jerseys on.”
