Roman Harper discusses impact of Carson Beck injury on Georgia's national title chances

Georgia made it as the No. 2 seed in the College Football Playoff, but enters the bracket with serious concerns following an elbow injury to starting QB Carson Beck. Beck suffered the injury in the first half of an eventual SEC Championship win against Texas on Saturday and has no timetable for return.

Gunner Stockton stepped in after Beck went down against the Longhorns and finished 12-of-16 passing for 71 yards. Former Alabama safety turned SEC Network analyst Roman Harper joined The Paul Finebaum Show on Monday to say he isn’t counting the Bulldogs out yet, but he does have doubts.

“Everybody else has to continue to step their game up,” Harper said. “I’m not ready to wash them down the river yet, but that is a huge loss. He’s been the No. 1 player on this team and kind of led this team all year long.

“You have one instance where your backup quarterback came in and everybody else steps up and rallied around him. I don’t know if I’m ready to see Gunner Stockton be the guy for three or four games straight vs. the absolute best teams in the country. It just means that you have to be that much more locked in. If Gunner was ready to be that guy, he’d have already been that guy.”

Stockton is in his third season in Athens but has spent most of that time as a backup. Saturday marked the first time in his career that he has seen playing time in a meaningful game that wasn’t a blowout.

Stockton is a former four-star prospect from the 2022 class who played high school football at Raburn County (GA). He ranked as the No. 149 overall player and No. 9 quarterback in the cycle according to the On3 Industry Ranking, a weighted average that utilizes all four major recruiting media companies.

Harper noted that Stockton presents some things differently than Beck, such as the running ability he displayed Saturday. However, overall, Georgia still has a lot of work to do to make sure it is ready for its matchup in three weeks against the winner between Notre Dame and Indiana.

“He’s got good arm strength and he’s also athletic,” Harper said of Stockton. “He can run a little bit and create some things with his legs more than what Carson Beck presents for you. I don’t know if Texas was completely ready for that, but other teams that are scouting Georgia and saw what Georgia is as an offense under Mike Bobo with Gunner Stockton at quarterback, you’re not just gonna be able to sit back there and motion the empty in the red zone and then run a quarterback draw. People are going to be ready for those things. So how do you continue to evolve knowing that this guy is your quarterback going forward?

“…Whether we like to admit it or not, Gunner Stockton completed most of his passes just right in front of them. It wasn’t like they stretched the field. They did so much more offensively with Carson Beck than they did with Gunner Stockton. So it’s some new things that you had to do and you had to see what was in his bucket and ability to be able to do that game. …But this Georgia team is battle-tested. They’ve been through injuries. They’ve been through a lot of different wars and it’s been a battle-ridden season. They’ve gone through the hard games on the road. They’ve survived and they’re here now because of those things.”

We’ll see what Georgia is able to accomplish if indeed Stockton is the quarterback they have to play with. Beck has still not been ruled out, but the initial reports certainly don’t look good on his status.

The Bulldogs have some time to prepare before their game on Jan. 1.