INDIANAPOLIS \u2014 Carson Beck opened his podium interview at the NFL combine on Friday talking football, but the conversation quickly turned to the transfer drama left in his wake.<\/p>\n
Beck, who left Georgia after the 2024 season and transferred to Miami, took advantage of the opportunity to clear the air.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s no bad blood, I\u2019m not sure where that came from, but I love the University of Georgia,\u201d said Beck, who holds a degree from UGA and will work out at 1 p.m. on Saturday at Lucas Oil Stadium. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\u201cI didn\u2019t know I\u2019d get injured at the end of the season, I didn\u2019t know that I was going to end up coming back to college for another year, that was never the plan.\u201d<\/p>\n
The plan changed quickly after Beck suffered a torn ulnar collateral ligament (UCL) on the final play of the first half against Texas in the 2024 SEC championship game.<\/p>\n
Beck originally declared himself eligible for the 2025 NFL draft before deciding to play another season of college football to ensure a full recovery and optimize his draft stock while landing a rich NIL deal.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s like, Gunner (Stockton) is next up, that\u2019s the thing, it\u2019s his turn to be the quarterback at the University of Georgia,\u201d Beck said. \u201cSo when I had decided to not go to the NFL and come back, I was going to go somewhere else. That\u2019s how it all worked out.\u201d<\/p>\n
Dillon Bell and Colbie Young, two of Beck\u2019s former teammates present at the NFL Combine on Friday, shared their thoughts on the former Georgia quarterback.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t care what they say about Carson, he\u2019s that dude, and I\u2019m going to always and forever stand by that \u2014 that\u2019s one of my best friends,\u201d Bell said. \u201cHe\u2019s very smart, he\u2019s a real floor general. He can lead a team. He\u2019s an NFL-ready quarterback. <\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve been with him three years, so I see how he is on the field and off the field. He\u2019s ready.\u201d<\/p>\n
Young, who transferred from Miami to Georgia in the 2024 offseason, shared how Beck \u2014 quite literally \u2014 invested in his teammates.<\/p>\n
\u201cCarson\u2019s an amazing guy. He flew us all out to Jacksonville to train in May (of 2024),\u201d Young said. \u201cJust an amazing guy who really wants to play the game of football. He\u2019s a winner at heart, just hadn\u2019t had the best opportunity when he was here (at UGA), but he showed it when he was at Miami.\u201d<\/p>\n
Beck was 24-3 as Georgia\u2019s starting quarterback, including playing the first half and final play of the 2024 SEC championship game victory over Texas.<\/p>\n
Beck, in one season at Miami was 13-3 and led the Hurricanes to wins over Texas A&M, Ohio State and Ole Miss en route to the CFP Championship game, where they were bested by Indiana, 27-21.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think it worked out awesome for everybody, for Georgia and for Miami,\u201d Miami coach Mario Cristobal told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. \u201cI think watching him trot in the end zone in the Fiesta Bowl to launch us into an opportunity for the national title was validation of so many things.<\/p>\n
\u201cCarson played such a heavy hand in that, and he helped galvanize the team. Just an elite human being, hard worker and competitor. I can\u2019t say enough great things about him. I can\u2019t wait to watch him play on Sundays.\u201d<\/p>\n
And yet, there was little to no talk from Beck about his most recent college football accomplishments at the NFL combine \u2014 it was putting his six-year football journey into perspective.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s been a super cool journey \u2026 It feels like I was in college forever, but everyone\u2019s path is different,\u201d Beck said. \u201cI\u2019m truly blessed and grateful that my path went the way it did. It\u2019s a lot easier to say that looking back at it now.\u201d<\/p>\n
No doubt, Beck sat on the bench for three seasons at UGA before earning the starting job in an era where most other highly ranked quarterbacks were transferring out to play immediately.<\/p>\n
Beck said he knew he needed to grow up and mature while with the Bulldogs.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was an 18-year-old kid and wanted to play early, I knew nothing, I was a child,\u201d Beck said of the start of his career at UGA. \u201cI\u2019m grateful to coach (Kirby) Smart and what he was able to instill in me and the teams that I was a part of, and some of the guys I got to play with.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou go look at the NFL and these rosters are full of guys from those (Georgia) teams from 2020 to 2024. So again, the discipline, the structure, the resiliency, the toughness that Coach Smart was able to instill in me personally is something I\u2019ll take on the rest of my life.\u201d<\/p>\n
When asked what he was most proud of in his career, Beck had plenty of victories and great plays to point to among the 43 games he started \u2014 but he went in another direction.<\/p>\n
\u201cMost proud of? Coming back from the surgery was something I\u2019m proud of,\u201d Beck said of the elbow surgery that sidelined him throughout spring drills at Miami.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe whole rehab process was a really hard journey; it was a hard thing for me mentally and physically, not knowing if I\u2019d have the opportunity to play quarterback at the level that I had.\u201d<\/p>\n
Beck said that\u2019s what he meant when he famously spoke of falling in love with the game of football.<\/p>\n
There had been plenty of speculation that his words were aimed at his experience at Georgia, but Beck\u2019s interview on Friday suggested quite the opposite.<\/p>\n
Beck, in fact, openly said how much he would welcome the opportunity to reunite with former UGA offensive coordinator Todd Monken, who\u2019s now the head coach of the Cleveland Browns.<\/p>\n
\u201cI had Coach Monken my first three years at Georgia, and I love him, personally,\u201d Beck said, sharing how he played baseball with Monken\u2019s son and got to know his future offensive coordinator when he was coaching receivers with the Jacksonville Jaguars.<\/p>\n
\u201cI really enjoyed him being my coach at the University of Georgia and what I was able to learn from him there, so I\u2019d be super stoked.\u201d<\/p>\n
Beck said he\u2019s enjoyed a \u201cmini-reunion\u201d with the Georgia teammates he\u2019s run into at the NFL Combine, with 10 former Bulldogs in attendance this week in Indianapolis.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve been able to see everybody, and obviously I\u2019ve spent a lot of time with those guys around the locker room, during games and in training, so those are relationships that last a lifetime,\u201d Beck said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI love Coach Smart, (offensive coordinator Mike) Bobo, Coach Monken and all the other teammates I was able to have there \u2026 There\u2019s no bad blood there, it\u2019s just how everything worked out and how it happened.\u201d<\/p>\n
Beck\u2019s transfer story could prove one for the ages, especially after Smart and Miami coach Mario Cristobal took turns roasting one another at the Steve Spurrier Awards in Gainesville, Florida, on Monday.<\/p>\n
Beck, at the very least, was able to leave the podium smiling after being asked about the exchange in the latter stages of his interview.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt had me rolling laughing, those two were going back and forth, all jokes and fun,\u201d said Beck, who was mentioned in one of Cristobal\u2019s pointed jabs at Smart. \u201cI got to play under two great coaches.\u201d<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"INDIANAPOLIS \u2014 Carson Beck opened his podium interview at the NFL combine on Friday talking football, but the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":501280,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[67],"tags":[25813,399,228554,681,8020,398,396,397,99],"class_list":["post-501279","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ncaa-football","tag-carson-beck","tag-football","tag-g-day-game","tag-georgia","tag-kirby-smart","tag-ncaa","tag-ncaa-football","tag-ncaafootball","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/501279","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=501279"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/501279\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/501280"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=501279"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=501279"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=501279"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}