- Carson Beck led Mandarin High School to the 2018 Class 8A state championship and was Florida’s ‘Mr. Football’
- Beck had committed to Alabama in football and Florida in baseball before making a final decision to play for the Bulldogs
- The last 13 Georgia quarterbacks to start against Florida for the first time have gone 1-12.
In a rivalry loaded with history — 108 years have passed since the University of Georgia first played the University of Florida in football by Florida’s reckoning, 119 years by Georgia’s account — Mandarin High graduate Carson Beck is about to write another chapter.
When the two teams play on Saturday at EverBank Stadium (3:30 p.m., CBS-47), Beck will become the first Bulldog quarterback from Jacksonville to ever start against the Gators. The 6-foot-4, 220-pound junior will join Tim Tebow (Nease) and Don Gaffney (Raines), who started three games each for the Gators, in representing the city by going under center in one of college football’s biggest rivalries.
Gene Frenette:Carson Beck seeks Georgia three-peat, piece of college football immortality
When Beck was finally able to turn his attention to Florida, two weeks ago after Georgia beat Vanderbilt he had a brief but telling comment.
“Super-cool,” he said in anticipation of the first time he would play at EverBank Stadium since a youth football game when he was 11 years old.
Despite the fact that the top-ranked Bulldogs (7-0) are two-touchdown favorites over the unranked Gators (5-2), UGA coach Kirby Smart needs Beck to be exactly that: cool under the pressure cooker that will be EverBank Stadium, filled with nearly 80,000 fans, split right down the middle between Dawgs and Gators.
Smart simply wants Beck to remember one thing: he’s surrounded by talent on the two-time defending national championship team.
“It’s all about working and executing within the offense, which is what we’re asking,” Smart said earlier this week during a news conference in Athens, Ga. “He knows it’s not all on…
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