Kirby Smart explains continued confidence in Carson Beck after 3-interception game

Carson Beck has had better statistical days than what he put up against Texas in a win: 23-of-41 for 175 yards and three interceptions. But Georgia head coach Kirby Smart has all the faith in his quarterback.

Smart explained his trust in Beck in a recent radio interview, and expressed his continued belief in him being the guy behind center for the Bulldogs. And it starts with the fact that Beck has been around the block.

“I’ve seen him do it so long,” Smart said. “I was telling somebody at practice the other day, ‘You know this kid’s been here since Covid year.’ When I think about that, I still remember going to Arkansas to play and he was part of our program and see him go through so much, he’s seen so much. He’s had so many reps. And I’ve just got a lot of trust and confidence in him. He’s intelligent. He makes good decisions.”

On Saturday in Austin, though, Beck struggled with the decisions at times, turning it over three times.

Smart didn’t shy away from that, but noted his quarterback doesn’t either. And he’s confident that both Beck and the pieces around him on offense have the resilience to come back and play to the level Smart knows they’re capable of.

“He’s had some throws that I know he wishes — he’d take back,” Smart said. “And he admits that. But when it comes down to it, I still believe in this guy and believe in him and our system and the players around him. They’ve got tremendous resilience. I don’t know what the stats our, but it seems like every time we have to have a drive, we have a drive. And we had to have a drive against Auburn, Mississippi State and he comes up with a drive. He did that last year. And that was one of those moments, it didn’t start out great that drive, we had lost our momentum. But he threw a strike on third down, that was a big play.” 

Smart said he didn’t use Texas being picked by many to win as a motivator

While Smart noticed ESPN College GameDay crew’s unanimous picks for Texas to defeat Georgia, he never brought it up to his players. During his appearance on Dukes & Bell, Smart pulled back the curtain on his decision not to mention the outside doubters to his team.

“I honestly never mentioned that. You can ask any player on our team,” Smart said. “No. 1, I don’t have time to bring that up because from the time they made those decisions and those pundits said a lot of those things, we didn’t meet as a team.

“We get prepared for the game. We do walk-throughs and then we go be ready to play. You’re not going to ever hear me talking about that… I don’t think that’s good to use that as motivation. I mean, hell, for a matter of fact, it might scare your team if you tell everybody picked against them. So I’m not interested.”