Friday Fodder for Filibustering: What Could’ve Been

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So there was some waxing poetic at the end of last nights game about poor Ole Carson and how he was treated in Athens:

I mean, he reportedly had the biggest NIL deal of any Georgia player to date, a Lambo SUV, and had his run of success at UGA. I’d say he had a good time in Athens, but what do I know?

What do you think…did Carson get a raw deal? Would he have been the difference maker in Athens this year had he stayed?

86 thoughts on “Friday Fodder for Filibustering: What Could’ve Been”

  1. I think something was “off” with him last year. Could’ve been money and fame, could’ve been his (ex) girlfriend, could’ve been confidence in his receiving corps…either way, him transferring seemed like the best for everyone in the moment. I’m not convinced that we’d be better off with him. Maybe the offense looks different and we try to be more vertical (he wasn’t a great deep ball guy), but not necessarily better. Good on Carson for making the most of it.

    • Could have been that we couldn’t run the ball very well last year.

      Our offense put a lot of pressure on Carson to be the entire offense last year.

      That’s really hard to do vs. good defenses.

      • Mainly it was because we didn’t catch the ball last year.

        Yeah, last night just reinforced why I hate Herbstreit and Fowler. Blathering on about poor Carson. He was treated like every other starting QB at every other football school in the country, meaning just fine, with the small subset complaining about his every move. We’re doing the same to Gunner and we did the same to Stetson.

        I was happy for Carson. They got the 3 yards we couldn’t. That was the difference in the games.

        • And they didn’t always run the right routes. Or get open.

          As for the “narrative” I think that is less about the average fan bullshit and them crying over a loss and more about:

          Letting him go to Miami and that departure is met with far too many people saying: good riddance, he sucks anyway. And then he makes the natty game.

          Not a good look and makes it seem like the previous complaints were atypical.

          Same thing would have played out had richt gone and won 12 games while we went 8-5. We would have looked the asshole.

          Someone was telling y’all he’s a pretty damn good player. Ill let you guess who that may have been.

          • He’s a pretty good qb who played all season with a great OL & running game, two things he did not have at UGA last year. There’s nothing great about him except maybe arm strength. His decision making & ability to carry a team are still very suspect. He also has an incredible talent at WR in Toney. The dude is the difference in them playing next week & not making the playoffs.

  2. Herbie will take any opportunity for a backhanded sleight towards us. He’s an ass.

  3. Yeah, the “poor ole Carson” narrative is weird, but I’m happy for him with the success he’s having at Miami. There was a portion of the fanbase that was happy to see him go, even hoping he’d faceplant at Miami, and I never understood that. He set a school record for completion percentage in ’23 and played well enough to lead us to back-to-back SEC title game appearances in ’23 & ’24. The separation between him and UGA was awkward, but it seems to have worked out well for both parties, and maybe better for him than us. I hope he continues to have success.

  4. I thought the commentary on Carson was laughable last night as well. When the “smiling again” comment was made I said out loud, ” he was smiling the last time he played Ole Miss too. It was from the bench while getting losing by double digits.”

    I don’t have any I’ll will towards and agree that the move on from Athens was probably the best for both parties. He showed some fire last night, but he still appears aloof and not real connected with his teammates. There was a shot of him after they scored a TD where he was looking at an iPad reviewing plays and a teammate approached him. Carson seemed to blow him off pretty much. I just think that is his personality. He isn’t a people person.

    • “Not a people person.” May be that simple.

      After his game winning TD run a teammate approached CB to celebrate and CB just kinda ran past him. Then when CB was looking to celebrate at the end, there was no one around.

      My suspicion is Costner won’t draft him for the Browns because nobody came to his birthday party (IYKYK).

      • Underrated movie. A few years ago I had a longtime client who advised us they were pulling their business. A few days later they asked for some help at the same hogh-volume rates we had been charging them. I got to use the “well, we live in a different world than we did just a few minutes ago” line and gave them the undiscounted rate.

  5. The guy is a really good qb. Very accurate. Does a good job of identifying the open receiver and getting the ball to them.

    Is not a guy who you can put in a chuck and duck situation and expect him to thrive or even survive.

    Give him a talented/balanced offense and he will do well.

    If he goes to the right NFL team who wants to rtdb, he’ll be a very good pro. If he goes somewhere where he has to chuck it 45 times a game, it will get ugly.

    As far as his treatment in Athens, there is a part of our, and every, fan base who couldn’t find their ass if it had a bell on it. Those sorts of folks I’m sure made life unpleasant as they have for so many before and will for those to come.

    Had he stuck around I don’t think it would have served us well as I think this team needed that “plus one” threat from the qb position that Beck doesn’t have.

    Better fit where he landed. Miami didn’t need him to do everything with his arm and didn’t need to use his feet to establish the run.

  7. I didn’t realize Miami and Ole Miss played last night. Weeknight semifinal is another gift from ESPN/s/
    I never was down on Beck. He was a better QB than some gave him credit for. As far as being a teammate he could have left after 2021 when he learned Bennett was returning but he was loyal and stayed instead of going somewhere that he could start. He graduated from UGA so he is a fellow alum. I do not know if he got a graduate degree from UGA.
    I understand him transferring. He faced surgery and rehab; there was no guarantee that he would be physically 100% by the beginning of the season. Miami made a huge gamble and paid him enough so that he would be fine if his injury limited him in 2025 and affected his professional opportunities.
    If he was a client I would have advised him to take Miami’s money.
    I hope he gets to kiss the ugly throphy.

  8. Sorry, if I’m not in the “woe is me” camp on Beck. He had a monster NIL deal. Some of his problems last year were guys dropping balls and not having a consistent running game to lean on (maybe that had something to do with the size of his NIL deal). Sometimes he looked like the Ginger Ninja and threw the ball directly into coverage.

    The way he was at the Sugar Bowl where it looked as if he was there against his will grated on me. He never looked like he was even trying to help Gunner or the rest of the offense.

    I hope Indiana or Oregon grinds them into dust … and I won’t be watching.

    • Some of that was not being on the same page as the receiver. When you’re spread out doing sight adjustments, sometimes the wr and the qb aren’t going to be on the same page.

      I remember Stet having one of those vs OSU.

      It looks like he threw it right at the defender but the intended target was supposed to be there in between.

      Carson can be reckless with the ball at times but our guy suffers from too much caution as times as well. Or myopia. Whatever.

      Pick your poison.

      One of the reasons I think Carson will have a good pro career is that my suspicion is that his read was almost always the right read. Pro wr’s will be more likely to get it right.

      • The interception on the goal line in the Mississippi State game happened right in front of me. It was a classic “I saw him but I threw it anyway” moment.

        The pick in the Bama game is an example of what you’re saying.

        • Obviously, I don’t know, but I bet that was on Luckie.

          May still have been ill advised, but I would bet that Luckie was meant to box that LB out by squaring off his route at the sticks rather than rounding it off 2 yards past them.

          That’s the sort of thing I was seeing last year. Beck probably expecting too much perfection from the route runners and then getting frustrated when it goes wrong.

    • It’s been a while since someone mentioned the Ginger Ninja. Nice reference.

  9. Good for Carson. Some people are just weird and that’s it. Not that they mean anything by the way they act and respond. And Carson was just one of those weird as hell guys. As my old dad would say “that boy is just plain damn weary”

    • It was that same ol’ shaggy dress.

      Bobo should have tried a little tenderness.

      Yes.

    • CB had a scholarship offer to play beisbol for the Gators. He would be a classic, eccentric relief pitcher. And, probably a good one.

  11. I don’t think that statement Herbie made was spontaneous for a second. He has never missed a chance to dump on Georgia when he could get away with it.

    By the end of last season it was clearly time for Beck to move on. It was best for both parties a change was needed. He was a DGD right up till he wasn’t and left.

  12. The commentary was silly and stupid. I know a lot of people will disagree but if we had Carson at QB, I think we cruise to a National Championship this year. His experience gives him all kinds of advantages that Gunnar just doesn’t have at this point. No disrespect to Gunnar, he did a good job, but Kirby made a grave error in not keeping Beck around.

    • Beck going and winning a Heisman would be have been a grave mistake. I watched every snap Beck took last year. At his NIL demands, he wasn’t worth bringing back. He was 3rd team All-ACC.

      Gunner wasn’t the reason we didn’t win the title this year.

    • Totally disagree.

      Our personnel wasn’t suited to having a pure pocket passer be successful at the highest level. Tried it in 2024.

      If anything our offensive personnel was less suited to it in 2025.

      You can point to Branch, but he’s not here if we’re handing his bag to Carson.

    • I will agree to this:

      If Beck stays healthy we may well have won out in 2024 in spite of our offensive deficiencies and because Beck is really good.

      As that’s not what happened I don’t blame Kirby for trying to become a more physical, less finesse football team.

      I think we needed that or we risked turning into alabama.

      Talented but soft as tissue paper.

    • Ee and Derek, I understand what y’all are saying. But I think everyone felt like UGA was a vastly superior team to Miami before the season, in the middle of the season and at the end of the season. Yet this inferior team, which many felt should not even be in the playoffs has won 3 straight and last night disposed of the team which sent us home. Beck even made a nice TD run. All he is doing is winning when it counts. A tall Stetson Bennett?

      • First, “everyone” tends to not know wtf they are talking about.

        I said in mid-October that there were 5 teams that could get it done:

        Georgia
        Alabama
        Miami
        ND
        Ohio State

        I said that because of the talent level at those places along both LOS.

        What happened to Miami is that they stayed healthy at those positions and we didn’t.

        We may have been in similar positions in October but not at the end. They didn’t lose their center and their best edge guy.

        Obviously I should have respected Indiana more, but I won’t believe they win in Miami in 10 days until I see it.

        So IMO we’re doing this thing right, we just need to stay healthier along the LOS if you want to have the best shot to keep playing into January.

        • Yeah I think that’s right. We have had incredibly shitty luck with injuries the last three years going back to ‘23 with Brock and McConkey getting hurt which Saban straight up said was the only reason they beat us. Last year Carson gets hurt. This year it’s Bobo and Gabe Harris. In each situation it was the wrist possible scenario. Surely to goodness we are due some better injury luck.

  13. I’m pretty sure it’s Bobo’s fault he didn’t stay and win US the natty.

      • I get where some of the criticism of Bobo-as-OC comes from, but in no universe is questioning his ability to develop college quarterbacks, legitimate in any way, shape or form….
        David Greene, DJ Shockley, Matt Stafford, Aaron Murray, Hutson Mason, Carson Beck and Gunnar Stockton all say “hi”! That is a pretty good 20-year run of excellent college QBs in my book…..

        • Sure, but do these people QBs and their families (also Kirby) know football at the same level as our resident couch coordinators?

          Clearly not.

          That much is abundantly clear, to be honest.

      • I was watching Miami thinking, these are exactly the same plays we run. Exactly.

        So yeah, had to be Bobo. Was Bobo there when Beck didn’t transfer in any of the portal windows between 2022-24? Sure but to be honest, facts tend to be illegitimate.

        Its legitimate to think that the more money thingy was happenstance and not at all the motivation to be honest.

        Its also legitimate to think Carson said: I’ll stay if you get rid of bobo so I can learn an all new system in the spring.

        Personally, I’m looking forward to a season with a qb in 2026 who is too fucking stupid, and/or unwanted, to run from Bobo as fast as he can, to be honest.

        • I don’t know, Derek, he declared for the draft and was hurt. It could be as simple as our NIL vs NFL Draft money vs Da U NIL. Also he might not have wanted to rehab under Kirby. He was around when things went south regarding JT Daniels’ oblique injury and our medical staff’s desires vs the family’s desires. Ironic after how we helped JT with his ACL. It might be a little more simple than we think.

          As for your last point, It’s very interesting that Puglisi is staying and he might fit the bill.

          The 30 for 30 about Kirby’s QBs is gonna be worse than bonkers, I bet

          • Yep. I’ve been saying for awhile that we’re playing against teams who have not had to deal with the qb drama or quality of play that we have. We haven’t gotten what you would call really lucky on a qb since Kirby landed at Ben Epps. Surely the regression to the mean will catch up soon.

            I am not saying that our qbs have been bad, but teams, like us, who are constantly competing for titles have multiple nfl starters that can point to.

            We have Stafford…and we’re near 20 years separated from his tenure. Before that Zeier had a handful of snaps. Before that Matt Robinson.

            And I’m blaming anything but shitty luck. We essentially are a National Program with what the 10th best record in history and we have Tarkenton and Stafford. That’s pretty much it and that’s pretty meager compared to the programs we have to compete with to win championships.

  15. He’ll always have the most passes dropped record at UGA (and if you think I’m making that up go look at the stats listing).

  16. There is no world where Kirby & UGA was going to match the NIL deal Miami put on the table. And there is no world where Carson was going to take a fraction of the money to stay. Pretending that wasn’t an issue, I think this year’s team would have gone through the same struggles with our w/o CB behind center but I do think he gave us a better opportunity to get further down the line.

    One thing is for certain, I am happy that I didn’t have to look at his smug RBF all season. Sorry not sorry.

    • It was Bobo man! Not the cash!! Mike and Carson were on the same Summer League baseball team and didn’t get along. Trust me.

      I am in the know!

  17. Herbstreit is the poster chick for normalising emotional illness. Remember he fled Columbus because the “fans were picking on him” and he cries on camera like a NYC Housing Czar in response to any social issue. Remember this is a person that questioned Mark Richt’s integrity, repeatedly. It’s nice of Herbstreit and Fowler to lecture us on “how'”bad””it””was””in””Athens” unlike Beck who has not said many things like that. He made a comment that football was fun again, but I never took that as a slight to UGA. Georgia isn’t the funnest place to play football but life at the top is hard. The pressure to perform I felt in the service to meet The Standard was heavy and from the outside it seems very similar holding a roster spot for the Dawgs. Luckily, I was surrounded by incredible performers and their vapor trail allowed me to succeed and meet my goals.

    Carson did it last night, hats off to the Pasty Somali (please lose the fade and go back to the surfer suave look). He’s gone on the best run of UGA transfer and took advantage of his opportunity. How is that a bad thing? His last play for Georgia – with one arm he came in and won us a SEC ring. I thank him for that and let him move on. I pity those that can’t.

    • Also, CB is the classic what you want from a QB on paper but not a football player. Lil Stet was what you want as a football player but not a prototype QB. I’m old school. I want a gunslainger with a uncoachable chip on his shoulder and if they have a rocket arm even better.

      • I want fire or ice and nothing in between.

        Either I am going to kill everyone to win or die trying or “what’s the big deal guys? I got this” swagger.

        Brady was the rare guy with both.

        Gunner needs to find his inner Joe Cool, especially early, because I don’t think he has the talent to just draw up plays in the dirt and sling it around. If the game slows down for him a bit and he gets comfortable, he’ll be fine.

  18. They also said Carson Beck was in his 7th year of school, which is wrong. I just looked and this was his 6th year. One RS and one COVID year, plus 4 years of playing.

  19. Heard all of that. That was the sound of the narrative they wanted to spin taking the L.

  20. We will not win a national championship with Mike Bobo as OC.

    I’ve been saying this since 2007. The 2007 SC and Tenn games were the first indicators of what Bobo would be like forever.

    The 2012 SC and Bama games sealed it.

    That’s Mike Bobo. Forever.

    A good OC who will get your stats, get some decent wins, but in the most critical games his offenses will disappear.

    11 goddamn years, two different head coaches, of him as OC and it is always the same story.

  22. Derek is right. Yall can not like his delivery but what he’s saying is the truth. The Bobo Derangement is just that; Derangement. There is nothing that can possibly happen that will change y’all’s minds. We could go back to back again and yall would somehow say it just proves yall were right. Because innthe end that’s all it’s about for the BDS crowd, being right. Just keep doubling down no matter what happens. I knew when Bobo was named OC that we were in for years of having to listen to this no matter what happened on the field. And I too am glad Corch Irvin Meyers got lost somewhere between GTP and here. Maybe he’s over at Reverend Whitewall’s blog shitting in the floor and blaming the stench on everybody else. I don’t know, I don’t care. I’m just glad that idiot isnt here.

  23. Well, given that we’ve only won 4 “big games” in our history, that means we’ve only had 3 OCs that were worth anything.

    Am I doing it right? We’ve already discounted SEC championships as not being worthy.

  25. Evidently this is a good old boy site! Y’all ain’t hitting on nothing. Been a Dawg thru thick and thin. Y’all talk crap! Did enjoy, but now you Johnny come lately don’t know these are the Glory Days!! I have lived thru 5-6 seasons and loses to va at homecoming 31 -0!!, Ohio (not state) in Tangerine bowl!! I am Dawg till it’s over. I hate everybody but us!! Go Dawgs!!

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