Carson Beck’s latest misadventures require quite the explanation

There will be doctoral theses written someday about the football odyssey that is Carson Beck. And when those way smarter than I commit virtual pen to virtual paper, they’ll surely include more than a couple paragraphs about Beck’s latest misadventure.

After all, how many 22-year-old college students have not 1 but 2 luxury sports cars stolen overnight?

Yes, you read that correctly. Beck – the former Georgia quarterback who decamped to Miami for his final season of eligibility – had both a Mercedes and a $300,000 Lamborghini lifted overnight Wednesday night in South Florida. His girlfriend, Hurricanes basketball player/social media star/identical twin Hanna Cavinder, also had her Range Rover SUV boosted in the same crime.

There’s a lot to unpack there, so let’s begin with the obvious… the fact that a college football player is an owner of a Lamborghini is a startling milepost for just how out of control Name, Image and Likeness (NIL) has become in collegiate athletics. Less than 10 years ago, rival fanbase websites would start drooling if a star athlete was tooling around town in, say, a new Dodge Charger.

Now? Heck, Beck was goofily grinning for photos through eyeglasses and in sweatpants and slides when he picked up the Lambo from Atlanta Autos in February 2024. No one cast even a sideways glance when Beck dropped that kind of cash for transportation, alas, as he had brand deals with Beats By Dre, Powerade, and Chipotle that rewarded him handsomely (pun intended) for his services whilst in Athens.

Just like that, “springing for Italian” meant peeling off stacks for an automobile worth more than a quarter-million bucks instead of simply wanting pasta for dinner.

Beck seemed destined for NFL fortunes when the 2024 season began, as Georgia was a consensus choice to nab 1 of the 12 College Football Playoff berths. The Bulldogs managed to do just that, even though Beck saw his NFL stock dip at various points in the season due to mistimed interceptions and then saw it dissolve altogether after an elbow injury in the SEC Championship Game.

That injury, which required surgery to the ulnar collateral ligament in his throwing arm, allowed Beck to explore using his final year of college eligibility before turning pro.

Enter Miami … or more accurately, enter Cavinder.

One half of the Insta-famous Cavinder twins alongside sister Haley, Hanna Cavinder reportedly began dating Beck before the 2024 football season began. And Cavinder was a presence in Beck’s socials throughout the star-crossed Georgia campaign that saw her man throw for an SEC-best 28 touchdowns but also chuck 12 interceptions before getting hurt.

After Beck’s surgery, surely, it had to have been floated that Beck decamp from Athens to the 305 to join his woman as a Hurricane. Miami’s NIL conglomerate, eager to reload from Cam Ward’s Heisman runner-up senior season, promptly forked over a reported $4 million and … voila! … there is Beck in orange and green throwing up The U all over South Beach and all over Instagram and TikTok.

Listen, we are all about true love here at Saturday Down South. And we are also all about outkicking one’s proverbial coverage – which Beck has unquestionably done with Cavinder. So we aren’t about to poo-poo the bona fides of a blossoming relationship between young adults.

Cynics would offer that Cavinder/Beck could also be viewed a bit like a long-term recruitment effort by Coral Gables to plug-and-play a Heisman-worthy talent into the Canes’ system. We aren’t insinuating that Cavinder is the one who shredded Beck’s elbow, alas, as it happened on national TV for the world to see. But it certainly is convenient that his attractive girlfriend just so happens to play basketball at a school that needed a new quarterback.

In the old days of (checking the calendar to ensure accuracy…) three decades ago, it was South Beach strip clubs, hundred-dollar handshakes and Pell Grant malfeasance that carried Miami to the ledge of the NCAA’s death penalty. Now, the keys to Mercedes and Lamborghinis are reportedly getting nicked from a superstar QB’s digs while he and his point guard/influencer girlfriend snooze nearby.

College football has changed so much, so fast, that the last 12 months of Carson Beck’s life require multiple social media accounts, an abacus that can account for seven digits before the decimal point and a detailed understanding of both the transfer portal and NIL to even wrap your brain around it.

Personally? I just hope the Lambo gets found before it hits a chop shop…

David Wasson

An APSE national award-winning writer and page designer, David Wasson has almost four decades of experience in the print journalism business in Florida and Alabama. His work has also appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times and several national magazines and websites. His Twitter handle: @JustDWasson.