The patience of Georgia football's Carson Beck, an outlier these days for college QBs

Carson Beck was home in Jacksonville last week during UGA's spring break, getting in work with his trainer for what will be important weeks ahead for the redshirt junior and two others competing for the starting quarterback job.

Beck is an outlier for these times in college football. A four-star quarterback who waited for his time. It just may come in his fourth season with the Bulldogs.

He struck around as a backup even while hearing in past offseasons that maybe he should pack up and go somewhere else to start.

“I think there’s a lot of that,” Beck said during the College Football Playoff, “but it doesn’t really affect me or my decision or what I’m thinking.”

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As Georgia football opens spring practices Tuesday, Beck and the race for the 2023 starting quarterback job to succeed Stetson Bennett will be a focal point.

“I know it will take its course,” coach Kirby Smart said, “and we've got a lot of time to prepare for that.”

Beck arrived as an early enrollee in 2020. He was part of a quarterback room that preseason that included Southern Cal transfer JT Daniels, Wake Forest transfer Jamie Newman, junior college transfer Stetson Bennett and redshirt freshman D’Wan Mathis. Newman opted out of the COVID-19 season, Mathis ended up transferring to Temple and Daniels after the 2021 season left for West Virginia and has since transferred again to Rice.

Beck has spent 40 games at Georgia as a backup. Bennett returned last season after leading Georgia to the 2021 national title and Beck was the No. 2 QB to the Heisman Trophy finalist.

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How rare is it to stick around as a quarterback for three seasons without ever starting?

It turns out Beck is the only top 50 rated quarterback from the classes of 2017 through 2020 who did not start a game in his first three years and hasn’t transferred, according to The Athletic. Of those 200 quarterbacks, 22 moved to another position and 10 stopped playing due to medical reasons or quit the sport. That leaves 168 other QBs. Beck is the only one who hasn’t transferred or already started.

“In today’s day and age whether it’s business or athletics, there’s too many folks that feel entitled, right, that don’t want to work and earn it,” said Chris Beck, Carson’s father, who has made a career for 25 years of finding jobs in the corporate world for military members. “There’s no such thing as, ‘Well, it’s my time.’ The transfer portal, NIL, everything has changed the landscape. At the end of the day, one of the things I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that he has are the core intangibles — leadership, discipline, work ethic and integrity. He really loves the grind.”

Will Mallory, a teammate of Beck’s at Providence School in Jacksonville for two seasons, saw it firsthand.

“He’s a guy that puts his head down and goes to work,” said Mallory who played tight end at Miami. “He’s a competitive guy, and that’s what I saw when he was a young freshman and sophomore. He played baseball before and switched over to football and obviously is doing it at a high level. His future is bright. That’s the kind of competitor he is. He’s going to get that job.”

Well, he has to first beat out redshirt sophomore Brock Vandagriff and redshirt freshman Gunner Stockton who were behind him in the pecking order at quarterback last season as Bennett led Georgia to a second straight national title.

Two of the three competing for the quarterback job will be disappointed by the time the season starts. Chances are a starter won’t be named until the preseason.

That could be a domino to send someone to the portal, but Beck has stuck it out so far.

“I came here for a reason,” Beck told former Georgia quarterback Aaron Murray in an interview for The Players’ Lounge posted on YouTube. “Obviously, the situation didn’t work out the way I wanted it to, but it’s not my plan at the end of the day. Things are going to work out the way they’re supposed to and I feel like the knowledge I’ve been able to gain and watch two really good quarterbacks (will help).”

Beck has transferred before. That was in high school when he went from Providence School to Mandarin High School before his junior season. He made that move for the sake of competition, going from a Florida 3A school to an 8A school.

“When you have Jalen Carter (at Apopka) lining up and you’re running an RPO and he’s smoking you on the blind side every single play… and Rian Davis at Wekiva,” Chris Beck said. “You’re playing teams that have 10, 11, 12 players all going D1.”

Chris Beck insists Carson never considered a transfer while at Georgia.

“He knows what there is there to do,” his father said. “He loves the University of Georgia. The culture, the grind. You have phenomenal athletes and friendships that are there. What you do go through builds lifelong bonds. That includes the Jordan Davises of the world, the George Pickens of the world, the Travon Walkers. They still communicate with him and keep in touch. They all believe in one another and each other.”

The 6-foot-4, 215-pound Beck will enter the spring as the favorite to win the job, but he was ahead of Bennett before the 2021 season. When it came time to play someone for an injured Daniels, Bennett got the nod.

Beck completed 74.3 percent of his passes for 310 yards with 4 touchdowns with no interceptions last season in seven games.

He got in workouts last week at 6Points QB Training in Jacksonville where he’s worked going back to his sophomore season of high school. That’s also where projected NFL first round pick Anthony Richardson of Florida trains.

“I don’t think he’s approaching it any different from a work standpoint, a focus standpoint, an execution standpoint going into spring football,” Chris Beck said. “His mission has been since he set foot there to become the starting quarterback.”

This article originally appeared on Athens Banner-Herald: Georgia football QB Carson Beck aims to move to starter