For Georgia quarterback Carson Beck, being dull is not a bad thing.
ATHENS, Georgia — Nobody has ever accused Georgia quarterback Carson Beck of going all “Tin Cup” and playing with reckless abandon on the football field.
If anything, he takes joy in being boring. Yes, boring.
“If you watch guys like Peyton Manning, Tom Brady and some of the greats, during those moments when you just couldn’t stop them, it’s because they’re always in the right place with the ball at the right time,” Beck told ESPN. “It can be monotonous to watch at times, but it helps football teams win games.
“I mean, obviously, it’s cool to do something spectacular, but I’m out there to win. And when you have the kind of talent I have around me at the University of Georgia, it’s about moving the ball down the field, getting first downs and throwing touchdowns. That’s the name of the game, and if it’s boring, I’ll take it.”
And yet, there is a little gunslinger in Beck, whose competitive fires burn deep but not always outwardly. His lifelong friend, Brendon Quinn, said Beck is hardly afraid to “go for the green” when the time is right.
Case in point: They were playing golf at Quinn’s home course, Queen’s Harbour Yacht and Country Club in Jacksonville, Florida, a few years ago and came to the 17th hole, a 525-yard, par-5 dogleg left with a large water hazard about 260 yards from the tee box.
Beck casually pulled out his driver. He might as well have been standing in the pocket, getting ready to deliver a strike on a crossing route as he addressed his ball.
“It’s gotta be 300 yards to clear the water,” Quinn told Beck.
Beck nodded and replied, “I know, but I’m going to hit driver and don’t really care where it goes.”
The ball shot off Beck’s club and disappeared.
“We’re all thinking it was a bad shot, that there’s no way it got over,” Quinn said. “Then we get on the other side of the water, and there it is sitting in the middle of the fairway, probably 310 yards. I’m like, ‘There’s literally no way he hit that ball,’ and he was like he always is — calm.
“Nothing ever gets to him, good or bad.”
For the record, Beck birdied the hole. He hit a 7-iron into the green and two-putted.
Once again, ho-hum. Fairways and greens. First downs and touchdowns.
“Carson’s been that person since he got here,” Georgia senior linebacker Smael Mondon Jr. said. “He’s always chill, always calm, always in control. The main thing is that he has confidence in himself, and he had that same confidence even before he played [here], before the whole world got to see him do it.”
Even for Beck, it’s incredible how much his life has altered in less than a year. During his first three seasons at Georgia, he was essentially a backup quarterback, attempting only 58 passes. He watched from the sidelines as Stetson Bennett led the Bulldogs to consecutive national championships in 2021 and 2022.
When preseason camp began in August, Beck had yet to be named the Bulldogs’ starting quarterback, and he was competing alongside Brock Vandagriff and Gunner Stockton.
