ATLANTA — Georgia football senior quarterback Carson Beck took a bad hit at the end of the second quarter of Saturday’s SEC Championship Game vs. Texas and was slow to get up.
“They just said his hand got hit as he was throwing it there,” head coach Kirby Smart told Holly Rowe on the ABC broadcast. “Guy came all the way around the edge, which people do on that situation. He’s gotta be aware of it and just get rid of the ball.”
While Smart remained hopeful heading into halftime, the broadcast later announced that Beck’s day was over.
Set to replace Beck is backup Gunner Stockton. Here are three things to know about the Bulldogs’ reserve QB:
Stockton hails from Tiger, Ga., where he attended Rabun County High School and was coached by Jaybo Shaw. He was a 4-star prospect coming out of high school and ranked as the No. 7 quarterback prospect nationally, No. 12 statewide, according to 247Sports.
He was named the 2021 Gatorade Football Player of the Year after leading Rabun County to an 11-2 record and the GHSA Class 2A state quarterfinals in his senior season with a 71.3 percent completion rate for 4,134 yards and 55 touchdowns and only one interception. He also rushed 137 times for 956 yards and 15 touchdowns that year.
The dual-sport athlete who also played baseball helped the Wildcats football team reach the semifinals as a junior with a 12-2 record, and quarterfinals as a sophomore and a freshman, too, amassing 13,652 passing yards (third in the state behind Aaron Philo and Trevor Lawrence), 177 passing touchdowns (first in the state above Lawrence), 4,372 rushing yards and 77 rushing touchdowns in his four-year varsity career.
He received two athletic scholarships to attend Georgia (Leon Farmer, UGAA Association).
Stockton, a redshirt sophomore, has played in three games this year and four games last year, totaling seven in his time with Georgia as Beck’s backup. He enrolled in January of 2022, but did not see play time that year.
In 2023, his redshirt freshman year, he completed 12 passes on 19 attempts for 148 yards, two touchdowns and one interception. He also had 11 carries for 63 yards, his longest rush being 14 yards, but no scores there. His best game last year was during the second half of the Orange Bowl versus Florida State, where he went 6-for-10 on passing for 96 yards and two touchdowns.
Stockton has completed 13 passes on 16 attempts for 135 yards with no interceptions for zero touchdowns this season. His best game was Tennessee Tech, where he went 10-for-12 on passing for 90 yards.
He saw his first action in the final drive of Georgia’s season opening win against Clemson in the Aflac Kickoff Game.
