Kirby Smart shares why Carson Beck is ready to be Georgia's starting quarterback

As Georgia heads into the 2023 season it does so needing to replace starting quarterback Stetson Bennett, and all hopes are on the shoulders of junior Carson Beck.

Beck feels prepared for it now, where a younger version of him might have been too influenced by every twist and turn in his journey along the way.

“He keeps his emotions in check and he told me, he said, ‘I’ve been that way since a young kid where I was very volatile as a baseball player,'” coach Kirby Smart said on ESPN’s College Football channel on YouTube. “He was a really talented baseball player. Committed to the University of Florida for baseball in high school and then decided to go the football route. He’s different.”

Beck did indeed end up at Florida’s rival, where he’ll be looking to keep the Bulldogs firmly entrenched atop their post high above the college football world. There are back-to-back national championships to defend.

If that’s going to happen, Beck will have to be really, really good.

The good news is that Smart certainly seems to believe that’s not only possible, but likely. He’s got a lot of confidence in his new starting quarterback, as does the team.

“Players really enjoy him,” Smart said. “They rally around him. He has a way with the skill players. Calm, cool, collected and poised in the pocket.”

To date Carson Beck is 36-of-58 passing for 486 yards, with six touchdowns and two interceptions. So to say his workload as the starting quarterback will be ramped up quite a bit in 2023 is putting it mildly.

Kirby Smart: It’s not national championship or bust

The expectations from the outside are that Georgia is once again a national championship contender. But Smart won’t tie his team to expectations of a national title or bust.

To him there’s a much wider range of outcomes.

““Well you say that, not me. I don’t think it’s national championship or bust, I don’t think any coach could ever say that that’s truly what it is. That’s not believable to me, it’s not probably sustainable,” Smart said. “But what measures success is the same thing it did the last seven years, did we do the best possible job we could with this team? Did we get the most out of this team that we possibly could? That comes from the team buying into that, that comes from everybody in the organization buying into that, but you can’t quantify that in a number of wins and losses. I don’t think you can do that, you gotta say did I get the most out of this group.”

Georgia will open its season on Sept. 2 against UT-Martin.