Arch Manning frustrated with Texas’ loss to Ohio State
Arch Manning frustrated with 14-7 loss to Ohio State in Week 1.
MIAMI GARDENS, Fla. — He’ll never say it because no matter the explanation, there are no winners in a blame game.
Only a loser who complains.Â
So I’ll do it for Carson Beck: the problem at Georgia last season wasn’t Beck. And he’s going to spend the next four months proving it.Â
Paint it any way you want, reality bleeds through. Georgia dropped 36 passes last season with Beck as quarterback. Thirty-six.Â
Miami didn’t drop a single ball in Beck’s first game with the Hurricanes.
I’ll give you three guesses who looked like an All-America quarterback in No. 10 Miami’s 27-24 upset of No. 5 Notre Dame Sunday night in suburban Miami. And the first two don’t count.
Beck’s redemption season kicked off here with a big game, and a bigger performance. With a late, game-winning drive, and a statement made.
Even if ever-conservative Miami coach Mario Cristobal nearly swallowed the game whole.
But understand this: if Beck plays like this the remainder of the season – and if Cristobal let’s go of the reins – Beck and the Hurricanes will give the storied program a breakthrough season for the first time in two decades.
It didn’t end until the Miami defense finally got a stop on the final series of the game, but the underlying story remains. This team will go as far as Beck takes it.
No matter what Georgia fans think.Â
It was those same Georgia fans who, despite Beck’s 24-3 record as a starter, blamed him for the program’s postseason slippage. Even though Georgia coach Kirby Smart called Beck immediately when it became clear he would return for the 2025 season while rehabbing his surgically repaired elbow.
So while Georgia fans were dogpiling Beck and extolling the virtues of try-hard backup Gunner Stockton, the best coach in the game desperately wanted Beck back in Athens. You do the math.Â
All it took was one game at Miami to show what Smart knew all along, and what Beck has been eager to prove since his Georgia career ended on the turf in the Mercedes-Benz Stadium, on the last play of the first half of the SEC championship game.
Throws are easier when receivers aren’t constantly dropping passes. The offense flows, it’s structurally operational, and it’s balanced.Â
If you’re dropping passes, you’re not setting up throws with the run game. If you’re dropping passes, you’re guessing when calling plays, unsure of what pays to call — much less setting up one play with another.Â
There’s is no plan or propose when you can’t consistently catch the ball. But when you can, when the quarterback can confidently step Ito throws, you get what played out against Notre Dame.Â
Smart throws, key throws, game-changing throws. Like Beck extending a play and throwing a touchdown pass to Malachi Toney in the first quarter. Or the final drive of the game, after Miami’s four previous possessions were all three-and-outs (with one ending in a field goal).Â
Before Cristobal got conservative and settled for a field goal, Beck hit CJ Daniels with a 9-yard curl, and threw a perfect deep ball to Keelan Marlon — one where Irish cornerback Christian Gray had no alternative but to interfere with what looked like a certain touchdown pass.Â
Miami eventually got the game-winning points, but the statement had been made over and over during Beck’s first game with his new team. He wasn’t the problem last year at Georgia.Â
To be fair to the Georgia receivers, the pass game is a three-pronged attacked. It’s protection, it’s receivers getting open and catching the ball, and the quarterback throwing on time and with anticipation.Â
If any of those three doesn’t happen, opportunity for success is significantly decreased. When two of the three have problems, it’s near impossible to have a functional pass game.
The Georgia offensive line had problems all season on the offensive line. It couldn’t stay healthy, guys were playing out of position and and some were underachieving. Now add those 36 drops to the equation.Â
Beck struggled last season, his interceptions doubled (to 12), his completion percentage dropped eight points (to 64 percent) and his yards per attempt fell to a mundane 7.8 (from 9.5), because the pass game process was a mess.
By midseason, when it was clear Beck didn’t or couldn’t trust his receivers, he started pressing. Started trying to make perfect throws to circumvent the two stragglers in the three-pronged pass game attack.
Not because Beck regressed, or because ehe got a big head with a reported $3 million NIL deal. Or because he drove around a Lamborghini.Â
All nonsense, but all fan angst fuel for Georgia missing the CFP in 2023, and losing in the quarterfinals in 2024.   Â
Fast forward to Sunday night: so many easy throws, so many usable pass concepts.
Everyone got involved, from a rebuilt receiving corps with key transfer portal additions and the electric freshman Toney, to tight end Eli Lofton and running backs Mark Fletcher Jr., and Joshua Moore.
In all, seven different receivers caught passes and the pass game was an operational symphony.
With nothing to complain about.Â
Matt Hayes is the senior national college football writer for USA TODAY Sports Network. Follow him on X at @MattHayesCFB.
