The college football world was more than shocked when former Georgia football quarterback Carson Beck made the decision about a month ago to transfer to Miami (FL) for his final season of college football. And UGA fans were most certainly part of that group that were upset. But one of the largest debates from the national media stemming from this has been if Beck deserved the hate that he received for making this decision.
On3 analyst J.D. Pickell recently posted the below video where he discussed if fans overreacted to Beck's decision to transfer. And even though he did not specifically mention Georgia fans, it's hard to not get the feeling that he is partially speaking directly at UGA fans.
The Carson Beck criticism is fair but Twitter is blowing it out of proportion. Still a top 10 QBR in CFB with a WR room that lead America in drops. Still a top QB to me going into 2025. https://t.co/DxojpL3qXl pic.twitter.com/V3l6poqfOR
— J.D. PicKell (@jdpickell) February 1, 2025
Were Georgia fans right for criticizing Beck?
At some point fans do need to realize that moves like this are bound to happen in today's college football landscape. NIL and the transfer portal, for better or for worse, has changed college football forever. So at some point everyone does just need to get used to star players deciding to pack their bags and head elsewhere like Beck did with Miami.
And while Georgia fans were upset with this move, there was one major factor that contributed to their displeasures the most.
After Beck was injured during the SEC Championship game, he stepped away from the team as he gathered medical opinions and treatment. That obviously is totally understandable, but the expectations was that he would return to the team at some point and help them prepare for the Sugar Bowl. That however did not happen. Beck was already checked out from the team and did not rejoin his teammates until the day before Georgia's game against Notre Dame. Beck then proceeded to offer no assistance to the team, which included Gunner Stockton who was making his first career start at quarterback.
After seeing this transpire, Georgia fans were not upset seeing Beck enter the NFL Draft. But to then change his mind and immediately transfer to Miami without another word to UGA rubbed a lot of people the wrong way.
No one is denying he is a good player
It is interesting that the above post focused so much on people claiming Beck isn't that great of a player. Have Georgia fans (or anyone for that matter) been saying that?
Everyone knows Beck didn't live up to the hype this past season, he would even tell you that. Sure that partially had to do with the play around him specifically at wide receiver, but overall Beck definitely regressed this past season. But that doesn't mean people think he is an awful player.
He is most certainly a top 10 quarterback heading into next season who will have a chance to do great things with the Hurricanes. It will be interesting to see how he does in Miami and it would not be surprising to see him continue to struggle, but it would also not be surprising to see him excel either.
So while Georgia fans maybe deserve some criticism for how they reacted to Beck leaving for Miami, none of that criticism should be revolved around people saying he is bad because no one ever really said that.