Carson Beck has foregone a potential fifth-year of college football to enter the NFL Draft, confirming that his time with the Georgia Bulldogs is up.

Beck suffered a season-ending injury in Georgia’s win over Texas, seeing him leave the game before coming back in to hand the ball off while undergoing surgery on his right elbow to repair his ulnar collateral ligament (UCL), with his focus now on the NFL Draft.

The 22-year-old had been eligible to play for a fifth season after being redshirted in his first year with the COVID rules meaning he could have played for the school for a final year in 2025. But he has instead taken the option to declare for the draft where he’ll hope to be one of the first few quarterback’s selected.

In a post to his social media platforms, Beck wrote: “The past five years at the University of Georgia have been nothing short of a dream come true and I will forever cherish the memories that have been made. Thank you Dawg Nation for the time I’ve been here and to those who’ve supported and believed in me, thank you. It’s been an incredible journey and all these moments have ultimately led me to take the next step in my football career.”

Coming into the 2024 season, Beck had been seen as the best quarterback in the draft class and was the favorite to be the first player taken, above the likes of Travis Hunter and fellow signal-callers Shedeur Sanders, Quinn Ewers and Cam Ward.

Beck has had his struggles in 2024, but will still be seen as a top prospect in the class

But despite Beck throwing for a career-high 28 touchdowns in 13 games this season, turnovers have really hampered his play this year while throwing 12 picks. Despite his numbers lacking though, many analysts still believe him to be considered as a first-round pick, with his offensive coordinator speaking glowingly.

Georgia OC Mike Bobo said: “Obviously when you look at the stats they aren’t the same stats as last year. But the goal, when you’re in this league, is to win the SEC Championship, and he was the quarterback in that game who got us to that game, and put us in that position.

“Every game isn’t going to be pretty, but his resiliency in every game, whether it went good or bad, to get over things, whether of his doing, of my doing, or the right guard, or drops, to be resilient and help us win football games in the fourth quarter, says a lot about our team and him.”