For Georgia quarterback Carson Beck, being boring isn’t a bad thing

ATHENS, Ga. — Nobody has ever accused Georgia quarterback Carson Beck of going full “Tin Cup” and playing with go-for-broke style on the football field.

If anything, he prides himself on 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 said. “Sometimes it’s boring to watch, but it wins football 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 surreal how much his world has changed in less than a year. He was the proverbial mop-up quarterback his first three seasons on the Georgia campus and attempted just 58 passes. He watched from the sideline as Stetson Bennett led the Bulldogs to back-to-back national championships in 2021 and 2022.

In August, when preseason camp began, Beck still hadn’t been named the Bulldogs’ starting quarterback, as he was competing for the job with Brock Vandagriff and Gunner Stockton.

“It was assumed that I was going to be the starter, but nothing was set in stone,” Beck said. “My only focus was competing every day. I still have that same mindset, but it’s more a competing-against-myself type of thing now. How can I be better so that everybody else around me is better?

“Respect is always earned, and trust is always earned. And for me, to be able to do that my first season as a starter, to earn the respect and have the trust of my teammates, was everything.”

As Georgia prepares for its spring game Saturday at Sanford Stadium, Beck has gone from fighting to be the guy who replaces Bennett eight months ago to one of the preseason favorites to win the Heisman Trophy and potentially the top quarterback taken in the 2025 NFL draft.

One NFL director of college scouting told ESPN that the 6-foot-4, 220-pound Beck was probably the No. 1 quarterback prospect at this point.

“He has all the tools — size, the athletic ability to operate in or out of the pocket, a big arm, can drive the ball into tight windows or throw with touch,” the scout said. “He also got better throughout the year.”

Beck passed for 3,941 yards last season, the third most of any FBS quarterback. He threw 24 touchdown passes and just six interceptions and also rushed for four touchdowns. His 72.4 completion percentage was a school record. He could have entered the NFL draft this year, but announced in mid-December that he was returning to Georgia.