A little help from his friends
Carson Beck's numbers were down in 2024. How much of it was actually due to a lackluster supporting cast?
Quick programming update:
I've been promising a good Buc-ee's recap for 2 weeks now and I just haven't had time to get it done. I'm going to try to knock it out this week though, but I've also got three nights of concerts on tap so... no promises.
On to the main story...
Maybe Carson Beck wasn’t so bad after all
Over on ESPN.com today, I've got my annual ranking of every FBS QB situation by tiers. It's a labor of... well, not love exactly. But something.
In doing this piece each year, I spend a lot of time dissecting stats for more than 100 quarterbacks and, in the process, often come across some interesting nuggets. For example: Did you know that, in the red zone last year, NC State's CJ Bailey -- a true freshman -- accounted for 17 touchdowns and zero turnovers? Pretty good, eh? So, that's the type of insight I'm looking for and mostly find by sheer luck after just fiddling around with Excel sheets for a long time.
In one QB's case, however, I went looking for some very specific numbers: Miami's Carson Beck.
As the story goes, this time a year ago, Beck was the consensus top QB in an admittedly light class and a potential No. 1 overall draft pick. Instead, it was Miami's QB of 2024 who went No. 1 overall, while Beck was considered mostly a disappointment. According to the talking heads, he became too self-involved, enjoyed his Lambo & spent most of his free time playing as a TikTok influencer with his then-girlfriend -- one of the Cavinder twins (but I can't remember which and I don't care enough to Google it). As a result of those distractions, Beck struggled in some big games and ultimately got hurt in the SEC championship which effectively forced him to return to college for another year. He then transferred to Miami, a move that Georgie viewed as addition by subtraction.
Only I'm not sure how much of that is actually true.
Was he distracted at times? Did he have a big head? I have no idea. Georgia fans sure thought so, but talk to anyone around Miami, and they can't wait to tell you how different Beck is than the public perception that's dogged him.
"Way different," Ruben Bain told me. "At first -- he's a quiet person, so it took a minute to feel him out. But after a couple interactions, seeing him in the locker room, he's a lighthearted, energetic person. In the spring, he's jumping around and celebrating. That's his true nature. That's what he really is once he gets comfortable with his group. And once the season rolls around, I feel like everybody's going to see that. He's not a bad person or a person they try to make him out to be."
He's no longer dating any Cavinders either, with the breakup making a few headlines but ultimately putting him under less of a spotlight.
I've also talked to a few folks on Georgia's staff and they definitely would've liked to have him back. The break though was an awkward one in which Beck didn't really give UGA a chance to make an offer. So, perhaps he viewed getting away from Athens as a positive.
On the field, I think it's relatively easy to make that case.
And here's where we get to those numbers I was talking about.
Here's a quick comparison of Beck's stat line from 2023 and 2024, which provides the basic explanation of why folks think he was a disappointment.
2023: 72.4% completions, 28 total TDs, six picks, 9.5 yards-per-pass, 3,941 yards of total offense, 86.0 Total QBR
2024: 64.7% completions, 29 total TDs, 12 picks, 7.8 yards-per-pass, 3,485 yards of total offense, 82.3 Total QBR
Undoubtedly, the overall numbers were better in 2023 -- though it's worth noting here that he accounted for more total touchdowns and that 82.3 Total QBR, while a decline, was still good for eighth nationally.
But my theory was this: Beck wasn't markedly worse in 2024 so much as Georgia's offense was markedly worse in 2024.
My first reason for assuming this was looking back at the 2023 SEC championship game, when Brock Bowers and Ladd McConkey were banged-up, and the Bulldogs -- dominant through most of the season -- struggled to move the football in a loss to Alabama. Well, in 2024, Bowers and McConkey were gone all season, and their replacements on the '24 offense were... not great. Lawson Luckie and Oscar Delp were fine at tight end, but they're hardly the first-round talent that Bowers was. And the receiving corps overall lacked anyone who could get open as routinely as McConkey. Add in a running game that spent an extensive stretch without Trevor Etienne and turned in the worst overall rushing performance at Georgia in 20-some years and... well, even Michelangelo probably wouldn't have done so well on the seventeenth chapel if his paints had been replaced by a box of Crayolas.
But this is more than just an assumption. We have some hard data.
Dropped passes by Georgia:
19 in 2023 (4.3%)
35 in 2024 (6.9%)
Yards-per-reception:
13.0 in 2023
11.7 in 2024
Contested catch rate:
34% in 2023
25% in 2024
Yards-per-target on play-action:
13.1 in 2023
10.6 in 2024
Basically everything tells you the offense as a whole was worse, not just Beck.
Indeed, let's adjust Beck's stat line to account for just two things: Drops and a failure to come up with contested grabs.
Georgia's receivers had 16 more drops while Beck was at QB in 2024 than 2023. On average, Beck averaged 10.3 yards-per-completion last season, so it's reasonable to assume if not for the extra drops, he'd have racked up about 165 more passing yards. And since seven of those drops came in the red zone -- three more than the prior year -- we can safely assume at least a couple more TD throws.
Now look at the contested catch rate:
About 36% of his throws were contested last year -- about 162 of them -- and Georgia came down with just 26.8% of them, as opposed to 34.8% in 2023. If we assume the 2023 rate for 2024, that should add roughly 13 more catches. Again, assuming an average yardage gain of 10.3 over 13 catches, we can add another 134 yards to his total and probably another TD or two.
We can also look at those drops, contested catches or other catchable attempts that went incomplete and calculate about a three INT difference year-over-year.
So let's do the math here: Change 29 incompletions to completions, add on 299 more yards and three more touchdowns. Now go back to that stat comparison:
2023: 72.4% completions, 28 total TDs, six picks, 9.5 yards-per-pass, 3,941 yards of total offense
2024: 71.2% completions, 32 total TDs, nine picks, 8.4 yards-per-pass, 3,784 yards of total offense
Were Beck's numbers better in 2023? Yes... but not by such a wide margin that a ton of folks would've noticed. And that doesn't account for dozens of other factors in how defenders played against him because of the lack of skill talent or the fact that he clearly pressed at times when he didn't have open receivers or that he had nearly 100 more dropbacks when trailing than he did in 2023.
So, what's all this mean? Who knows. It's impossible to say what is in Beck's head... we don't exactly know how healthy he is, though Mario Cristobal says he's close to 100%... and we don't yet know just how much better Miami's supporting cast will be. Predictions are tough. But I think part of the problem was too many people predicted Beck to be exceptional last year without considering how much had changed around him, and when he turned out to be simply very good, it was chalked up as a big disappointment.
I'm not going to predict an elite season from Beck. But I do think he's not a markedly different player in 2025 than he was in 2023, so if a few of the things around him prove to be better, his numbers almost certainly will be, too.
A few more things this week…
I’d love to add a few more subscribers and get to a point where there’s some good back-and-forth conversation after these posts. So, what are you waiting for? It’s free!
Andrea and I talked with Dave Doeren at the ACC spring meetings, and I thought he was extremely insightful on a number of topics, but particularly how he thinks this team is hungry after last season’s disappointment.
Tiktok failed to load.Enable 3rd party cookies or use another browser
I also talked with Clemson AD Graham Neff and Notre Dame AD Pete Bevacqua about their new 12-year scheduling agreement. My takeaway: We need a design idea for the Tim Bourret Trophy.
Tiktok failed to load.Enable 3rd party cookies or use another browser
And a few quick reading recommendations…
It’s graduation time, which means some dads out there are trying very hard not to be extremely emotional because of, you know, all the dust and pollen or something.
Anyway, two dads I’m lucky enough to call friends shared some particularly compelling essays this week I wanted to share.
First, the great Joe Posnanski spent a week sharing prior stories he’d written about his daughter, Elizabeth, as she graduates from college. There were a ton of great ones, but this one I read for the first time and — well, let’s just say I shouldn’t have read it in a public place. It’s about the way dads and daughters grow apart and the strands — like a great song — that keep them together.
Second, Matt Crossman’s essay on the duality of wanting to see your child grow and flourish and wanting them to remain yours — young and full of hope and optimism and happiness — forever is the inevitable battle we all face.
That’s it for now. Buc-ee’s post soon. Really. Seriously. Probably.