Georgia football quarterback Carson Beck aims to take the next step: ‘I’ve seen great improvement from him’

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Carson Beck looking to find his place in Georgia football quarterback picture

ATHENS — None of this is new for redshirt sophomore Carson Beck at this point. He’s in his third year at Georgia. He’s gone through spring practice before and he’s worked with offensive coordinator Todd Monken for the entirety of his Georgia career.

Beck practiced well last spring, so much so that he was named the No. 2 quarterback in August. He seemed to be making the natural progression you’d want from a young quarterback.

Related: What we learned about Georgia football quarterbacks after watching spring practice

Yet when starter JT Daniels suffered an injury in the win over Clemson, it wasn’t Beck who eve to replace Daniels. It was Stetson Bennett. Beck still saw game action against UAB last fall, but his performance was drastically different from that of Bennett. The latter threw five touchdown passes. Beck meanwhile completed just four of his 10 pass attempts. He threw his first career touchdown, yet he also threw a pick-6, which gave the Blazers their only points of the game.

Beck threw just 23 pass attempts last fall. For all the progress made the previous spring, it was hard to know where Beck stood. Georgia also has former 5-star quarterback Brock Vandagriff in the stable, and the Bulldogs signed 4-star prospect Gunner Stockton as well. Daniels announced his transfer, but Bennett elected to return for another season.

So far this spring through, Beck is back doing what he did at this point last year. He’s made a quick impression on his teammates and coaches.

“I’ve seen great improvement from him, and I’m looking forward to the way he can play this fall,” defensive back William Poole said.

Former Georgia quarterback Aaron Murray went a little further in his praise. Murray, who holds just about every Georgia passing record, has long been an admirer of Beck’s talents.

Early reports out of spring seem to indicate that Beck is making strides and at the very least pushing Bennett. Chatter indicates Beck has made a handful of strong throws, including a deep pass to Dominick Blaylock in Saturday’s scrimmage.

Related: Georgia scrimmage report: Stetson Bennett holding starting job, Dominick Blaylock breaks out

But if playing well in the spring were a key to starting on fall Saturdays, we might already have seen that from Beck. Murray went into deeper detail about what Beck needs to do to take that next step.

“When you look at just pure arm talent, the ease of throwing the ball, the accuracy, he checks a lot of boxes,” Murray said. “He’s someone who needs to take that mental hurdle, of being able to mentally get ready for a game, mentally be able to execute at all times because that’s what you have to do. You can’t have a bad practice.

To that point, consider his interception against UAB. Beck airmailed a pass intended for Daijun Edwards and it landed right in the hands of UAB’s Keondre Swoops. Add in that Beck didn’t give great effort in chasing down the UAB defender, it was not the play of someone who was completely locked in.