Georgia’s Playoff Hopes Dim as Carson Beck’s Injury Forces Unproven Gunner Stockton into Spotlight

There are other threats in the College Football Playoff to No. 1 Oregon. Georgia is no longer one of them.

Carson Beck’s UCL injury might not be defined as season-ending publicly at this point, but it doesn’t take lipreading professionals to decipher the body language from Beck and on the Bulldogs’ sideline. 

This isn’t to say former four-star recruit Gunner Stockton, the redshirt sophomore who climbs to the top line on the UGA depth chart if Beck’s name is erased for the Sugar Bowl on New Year’s Day, can’t win a game. 

If Indiana, the No. 10 seed visiting Notre Dame in the first round for the right to face the Bulldogs, advances, there is a path to the Final Four for Georgia that looks a lot like 1960s football. Conservative on steroids, handoffs on repeat, and relying on a well-constructed line on either side of the ball to smoke out the Hoosiers with a slow boil for four quarters. 

Georgia can still be a threat. 

Kirby Smart is some kind of special himself, easily in the pantheon of coaching greats since Nick Saban took (relatively) early retirement. His defense is built with NFL prospects, and as a group, no team in the 12-pack playoff field walks on the field better prepared on game day. 

It’s a subtle shift, but we “can” win was not the mindset of Smart’s team. We “will win” and make you like it was closer to the mantra even with Beck having less than his best season. 

Beck’s expression flexing his injured right arm put a face to what opponents and other invested observers already know. It’s bad. But maybe it won’t stay that way.

It was Beck who brought the Bulldogs back in a near comeback for the ages at Alabama. He whipped 50 passes that day; Stockton has attempted 51 in his two-year career. 

It was Beck who calmly steered Georgia through rocky moments in the 31-17 rebound win over Tennessee following the lopsided loss to Ole Miss. 

And it was not all that long ago it was Beck in these cleats Stockton is lacing up, trying to prove he was worthy of the spot once filled by championship-winning QB Stetson Bennett.

Georgia was chasing a three-peat and at 7-0 when a kid Smart knew could win made his first-ever start on the road in the SEC against archrival Florida in Jacksonville. Smart and Beck knew a few things we didn’t. 

They know all about handoffs. Georgia would set the record for consecutive SEC wins split between a former walk-on who had to leave to feel wanted back at Georgia in Bennett and Beck, whose best throws were in practice until the opportunity for more arrived.

Untested at this level, can the locker room be convinced there’s trophy stock in Stockton?

Smart has three full weeks to make more believers.