Carson Beck never wanted to leave Georgia while not playing

In a world full of transfer portal speculation and players shuffling around every offseason, new Georgia starting quarterback Carson Beck never entered the portal. Even as he sat as the backup quarterback for most of the past three years, he said the thought of transferring never seriously crossed his mind.

“I mean, obviously, there’s always thoughts whenever you’re a freshman, sophomore, things get hard,” Beck said. “Workouts are hard. Practice is hard. You’re not getting much playing-time reps. But no, there was never really a time where I was like, I’m leaving. I’m getting out of here. There was always thoughts but that’s really all.”

Beck will take over for Stetson Bennett IV, who emerged over the past two seasons as one of the biggest fan favorites in Georgia football history.

Bennett led the team to two national championships, walking off into the sunset in a historic blowout of TCU in the College Football Playoff National Championship.

The former walk-on is now off in the NFL while Beck will get his chance to start. However, if things had gone differently two seasons ago, the current scenario might be very different.

Bulldogs head coach Kirby Smart told Rece Davis on ESPN’s College GameDay Podcast that Beck was actually in line to be the starting quarterback after JT Daniels went down after the first game of the 2021 season.

“The interesting thing about Carson that people don’t talk about is that there was a time when he was the two in our first national championship run and Stetson was the three,” Smart said. “Stetson only took reps with the threes. We play Clemson, Carson’s the two. We come out of the game, and JT Daniels has an oblique injury. We’ve got to go the next week and we weren’t sure if he was gonna be able to play or not. So, enter Carson….I think we’re getting ready to play UAB. Right at the end of the week, coach (Todd) Monken came to me and said, ‘Hey, look, I think we gotta go with Stetson here. I think Stetson gives us a better chance to win. He’s played a little better this week.’

“Carson spoke to the team about missing that opportunity, and how it affected him and how he didn’t think that he had prepared the right way. He didn’t think that he was prepared. It went on to happen where Stetson never looked back, played for two years, but Carson Beck could have been our quarterback that entire time. He learned from that. He learned valuable lessons from that.”

Beck will get his first shot at redemption with Georgia’s Week 1 matchup versus UT-Martin.