Georgia has the better quarterback, but Mike Bobo may not let Carson Beck outplay Jalen Milroe

Once it became clear that Carson Beck was heading back to Athens and Jalen Milroe to Tuscaloosa, both veteran quarterbacks entered the 2024 season as Heisman Trophy favorites, but with very different outlooks as NFL prospects. 

Beck returned as the clear top quarterback in the 2025 NFL Draft, while questions persisted about how Milroe would evolve his game under new head coach Kalen DeBoer to become a more polished passer. Now, the two will meet for a rematch of their SEC Championship bout last year in a top-five SEC showdown as No. 4 Alabama hosts No. 2 Georgia in Week 5. 

Milroe is a uniquely dynamic weapon at the quarterback position, however, the dual-threat redshirt junior has only attempted 52 passes through his team’s 3-0 start, and when forced into a passing situation on late downs, Milroe has just a 17.5% success rate. The problem for the defenses that have faced him, Alabama is really hard to get into third-and-long. 

Neither Georgia nor Alabama have been particularly effective running the ball this season. Bobo’s offense, which added Trevor Etienne from Florida this offseason and would be lost without him, ranked 92nd in rushing success rate at 39.2%, while Alabama is 73rd at 41.0%. 

Yet, in a game where Georgia trailed into the second half against Kentucky, Bobo ran the ball 63% of the time on early downs and generated an early down EPA/play of 0.06. When Beck is allowed to throw on early downs, Georgia has been largely conservative, increasing Beck’s rate of screen passes from 22% in 2023 to 24% in 2024 despite Beck’s yards per attempt on screens dropping from 7.0 to 4.8. 

Without Brock Bowers and Ladd McConkey on Georgia’s roster, the quarterback is arguably the team’s best playmaker, yet Beck is being handled like a game-manager instead of the offensive elevator he can be.

Beck ranks 125th in average depth of target at 7.7 and the offense has an explosive pass rate of 9.5% which is 55th percentile in the sport. On plays within structure, or under 2.5 seconds, Beck’s average depth of target is only 2.5 yards, an alarmingly low number and a sign of an overly conservative coordinator who is flat-out refusing to give his quarterback the chance to push the ball downfield. 

Carson Beck is one of the most accurate quarterbacks in college football and in his first year as a starter, he finished third in the country with 3,949 passing yards, the most of any returning player in the sport. Yet, Bobo continues to operate as though he has an unproven commodity leading his offense, and the result has been an underwhelming offense. The only silver lining is Beck showcasing just how effective he can be when facing adversity. 

So far, Georgia has been facing an average third-down distance of 7.42 yards, and remarkably Beck is still producing 0.761 EPA/play on third downs which is 49th best in the country. Despite his late-down heroics, the Dawgs only have a late-down success rate of 42.9%. NFL scouts will be happy to draft a quarterback who can function in less-than-ideal circumstances, but at Georgia, the circumstance should never be that. 

Beck will be the best quarterback on the field on Saturday, every talent evaluator would agree, yet, there’s no guarantee that he’ll be allowed to outproduce his counterpart. Game-script has dictated a lot of early down runs in Alabama's blowout wins, so the aggressiveness isn't on display there. However, on in-structure dropbacks, Milroe has a 6.3 ADOT, nearly four yards deeper than Beck, and though he’s known as a big-game hunter who extends plays with his legs and holds onto the ball too long, 42.9% of his dropbacks have fallen in that 2.5-second threshold compared to 48.4% for Beck. Somehow, the run-first scrambler, continually knocked for his accuracy, is completing 80.8% of his in-structure throws to Beck’s 79.5% even while throwing screens about half as often.

To put it more succinctly, Alabama’s new head coach, Kalen DeBoer, and his offensive coordinator, Nick Sheridan, are giving their quarterback easy answers on in-structure throws to keep him ahead of the chains, they’re maximizing his deep ball accuracy with aggressive downfield shots from the pocket, and it's working.

The Tide's passing offense is generating an explosive on 12.5% of dropbacks, and despite Milroe's propensity to take huge losses on sacks, which help drop him to 119th in yards per dropback at 4.72, he's still 13th in EPA/dropback, five spots ahead of Beck. Even with massive flaws in his game that have scared off the same NFL evaluators that will make Beck a first-rounder, Alabama has a more effective and efficient passing offense than Georgia.

Another one of those struggles is third-and-pass scenarios, so DeBoer and Sheridan are making sure he’s rarely ever there because the easiest way to protect your quarterback on late downs, especially if you lack an elite run game, is to trust him on the early ones. Nobody would contest that Milroe is a more complete quarterback or accurate passer than Beck, but the numbers say that and that’s damning for Georgia’s play caller. 

Bobo nearly cost Georgia against Kentucky, and if he calls the game the same way against Alabama, Kirby Smart will lose his first regular season football game since 2020.

Carson Beck will be the one that NFL scouts of quarterback-needy teams will be writing up reports on after the game, but because of how outmatched Bobo is by the offensive staff on the opposing sideline, he may not be given the best chance to win the game. If that's the case, Smart will need to consider a change because his Todd Monken replacement is stuck in the dark ages.