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Kirby Smart had to be careful. But the Georgia head coach had to be honest, too.
Smart was the winning coach in Saturday’s SEC Championship Game, yet he had to tell reporters and the college football world exactly what his starting quarterback’s injury prognosis was going forward. Carson Beck was knocked out of Georgia’s 22-19 overtime win over Texas. After the game, Smart offered an update on Beck’s status.
“Upper-extremity injury. We don’t know to what extent. Basically, they looked at it in there and it looked OK but he couldn’t have grip strength and throw the ball in the locker room. It was a little bit painful for that,” Smart said. “We need to find out exactly what’s going on and have an MRI to look into it.”
Beck was injured on the final play of the first half and had to be replaced in the third quarter by Gunner Stockton, who led the Bulldogs on a path to victory.
And even though fate intervened a little and Beck replaced Stockton on the final play of overtime when Stockton’s helmet was knocked off on the previous play, it didn’t mean all was fine and dandy for Beck.
Beck couldn’t lift his right arm, but he could at least hand the ball off when he replaced Stockton on the final, fateful play in OT. On a first-and-goal from the 4-yard line, Beck simply had to hand the ball off to Trevor Etienne, who took off up the middle for the game-winning touchdown.
In that moment, Georgia was the SEC champion with a whole lot of question marks at quarterback going into Selection Sunday.
Cory Nightingale, a former sportswriter and sports editor at the Miami Herald and Palm Beach Post, is a South Florida-based freelance writer who covers Alabama for SaturdayDownSouth.com.
