Carson Beck is the quarterback that many UGA fans forget about.
The redshirt freshman showed off his arm strength in a workout video posted by his personal quarterback coach, Denny Thompson of 6Points Jacksonville (Fla.). And the workout was on July 4th.
Story continues below the tweet.
It’s JT Daniels, who deservingly gets the QB spotlight. He may be the best quarterback that has started for Georgia since former NFL No. 1 overall pick Matt Stafford.
When UGA fans think about life after Daniels, the first names that seem to come to mind are Brock Vandagriff, the incoming 5-star signee who flipped from Oklahoma to the Bulldogs, and Gunner Stockton, the 4-star commit who vowed not to run away from stiff competition by publicly “promising” he’d graduate from the university.
The forgotten man may be Beck, the 6-foot-4, 215-pounder from Jacksonville. Since he’s not from the state of Georgia, and since he was a late-bloomer as a prospect, he doesn’t get the same hype.
Beck was ranked as the nation’s No. 250 overall prospect after his senior season of high school in 2020. The classic pro-style quarterback led his team to a state championship in Florida’s largest classification as a junior. The former Florida baseball commitment also earned the Florida “Mr. Football” honors for that same season.
One of the highlights of UGA practice next month will be the battle for the No. 2 quarterback job between Beck, former walk-on Stetson Bennett and Vandagriff.
By looking at the video and seeing Beck’s arm strength -- along with the fact that he was working out on the biggest holiday of the summer, it may indicate how serious Beck is about competing for the spot.
He has an advantage over Vandagriff, as Beck has had more than a year to train under UGA offensive genius Todd Monken. Should be a fun battle to watch. Obviously, the winner this August will be the favorite to be the post-JT starter at Georgia.
Georgia WR heads out of state
It was another tough blow for UGA recruiting with receivers when 4-star receiver Kojo Antwi committed to Ohio State over the Bulldogs and Texas A&M on Monday.
Some fans have blamed the recruiting loss on UGA WRs coach Cortez Hankton for Antwi, who is from the nearby suburbs of Atlanta. And surely Hankton shoulds some of the blame because he’s the position coach. But he’s in a tough spot chasing elite receivers with UGA’s track record of offensive passing numbers of recent years.
Hopefully, coach Kirby Smart will finally turn over the keys of this year’s offense to Monken, and let the former NFL whiz do his thing. Until UGA’s receivers routinely put up big numbers, it will be tough for the Bulldogs to turn the heads of the future 5-star pass catchers.
I think about Georgia’s blowout win over South Carolina last year when the Bulldogs turned over the game to fourth-string tailback Daijun Edwards for the final 10 minutes. That would’ve been a great opportunity to work on the passing game, and get some yards (and playing experience) for the team’s receivers, as opposed to running out the clock. For Smart, it’s a tough line to walk because you don’t want to run up the score any more than needed, so maybe you pass until you get near the goal line. Whatever the case, UGA needs some eye-popping numbers from receivers to attract future ones.
One other thing that I find interesting from when I covered football recruiting five years ago -- times have changed. I’m pretty sure UGA’s coaches were disappointed, but probably acted as if nothing happened when Antwi picked another school not named the Bulldogs on Monday. These days, especially with the kids from the state of Georgia, it’s never over in recruiting. The new NCAA transfer rules make it super easy once a player gets homesick. After all, look what happened between UGA and Arik Gilbert. It’s never over, until all eligibility is exhausted.
Good news for Gilbert?
In case you missed it, UGA coach Kirby Smart recently sent out a tweet that congratulated three of his players for something called “Academic Players of the Week.”
Most importantly – and perhaps the purpose of the tweet – was Arik Gilbert being one of those three players listed. Gilbert is the former celebrated 5-star recruit who transferred from LSU to Georgia this summer.
Over the last six months, Gilbert has been dogged by academic rumors that appear to be unsubstantiated. In January, Gilbert announced his transfer from LSU and did online classes this spring. When he committed to Florida in the early spring and later changed his mind, some message board posts even accused Gilbert of flunking out of Florida even though he never took classes there.
Unfortunately and unfairly for Gilbert, the rumor mill is part of the deal when you’re such a high-profile player.
Back to Smart’s tweet: Maybe the tweet was an indirect way of saying “Gilbert’s academics are looking fine, he’s on track.”
By the way, when is the last time UGA lost a star player for a season due to academics? And beyond Georgia’s campus, in this age of online classes and around-the-clock tutorial help, it’s seems hard to not be academically successful if the student-athlete shows the effort and determination.
Gilbert’s importance to this year’s team cannot be underestimated as the converted tight end is a potential game-changer at receiver.
