NFL News NFL News, Reports and Updates
Carson Beck entered the 2024 college football season with a sterling professional outlook. Many mock drafts pegged Beck as the first quarterback taken off the board within the first five picks of the first round in 2025.
But an up-and-down year at Georgia, underscored by an SEC-high 12 interceptions and a UCL injury in the SEC Championship Game that required surgery to repair, caused Beck’s stock plummet. CBS Sports ranked Beck as its No. 55 overall prospect, and some scouts thought he was a Day 3 pick.
That’s the difference a so-so year makes, even if Beck still threw for 3,485 yards and 28 touchdowns, both top five among SEC quarterbacks.
It’s against that backdrop that Beck made the increasingly common decision to return to school for another year. It won’t be with Georgia, though. Beck entered the transfer portal, where he instantly became the top prospect in 247Sports’ Transfer Rankings but just as quickly committed to Miami.
NFL-caliber quarterbacks returning for another year in college isn’t a new concept. Tennessee legend Peyton Manning, famously, returned for his senior season in 1997 despite being projected as the top overall pick in that year’s draft; he still went No. 1 in 1998.
USC quarterback Matt Barkley, a projected first-round selection in the 2012 NFL Draft, actually hurt his stock some by instead returning for another year with the Trojans. He was still picked in the fourth round of the 2013 NFL Draft and went on to have a decade-long career as a backup. There are worse fates.
The transfer portal has entirely changed that dynamic. Now, not only can quarterbacks return for another year, they can do so with — in some cases — a much-needed change of scenery. For a lot of players, it’s a prime opportunity to…
Source link : https://www.cbssports.com/college-football/news/did-carson-beck-make-the-right-choice-recent-history-says-picking-transfer-portal-over-nfl-draft-can-work/
Author : Will Backus
Publish date : 2025-01-15 15:59:00
Copyright for syndicated content belongs to the linked Source.
