The Georgia football team is getting ready to take on Florida State football in the Orange Bowl on Saturday, and the Bulldogs will have their starting quarterback, Carson Beck, playing in the game. Beck had a decision to make after Georgia lost in the SEC title game, and he decided that he wanted to play one more year with the Bulldogs. If Beck decided that he was going to leave, he likely would've opted out of the Orange Bowl, but that will not be the case.

Georgia football had a good season as they started 12-0 before the SEC title game, but they don't want to be in the Orange Bowl. The Bulldogs wanted to defend their back-to-back national titles, but a loss to Alabama derailed those hopes. When that happened, Carson Beck knew that he wanted to come back.

“I think I knew, truly, a few days after the (Dec. 2) game,” Beck said, according to an article from Dawg Nation. “In my heart I knew exactly what I wanted to do and what I was going to do, I just had to talk to people and make sure everyone was in agreement with what I wanted to do.”

This Georgia team has built something special, and even though they fell short of their goals, the future is bright. Beck couldn't say no to that.

“The biggest thing for me was obviously coming back, playing with the guys, obviously the camaraderie we have in the locker room, that’s a huge part, and it’s hard to just leave that,” Beck continued. “I feel like the chemistry we have, the standard that we’ve set, a lot of those things led me to coming back and wanting to do this again with the players around me.”

Losing to Alabama certainly played a role in Beck's decision, and he admitted that. If Georgia football had won that game, things could be different.

“I feel like if we hadn’t have lost that game, maybe this would be different,” Beck said. “Obviously that’s the way things panned out, and mentally that had an effect on my decision. There was a lot of conversations with my family and coaches and people I trust and confide in with a huge decision like that.”

Beck knew that when Georgia lost that game, their championship hopes were over. That helped him make his decision to come back.

“I kind of knew, honestly, in my heart, I was like ‘yeah, we’re probably not going to get in',” Beck said. “We (could) only hope from that point that maybe we get the opportunity, but that was our playoff game, two top ranked teams in the SEC Championship, whoever wins is going to get in, and we ended up losing that.”

Another factor in Beck's decision was knowing that he would be the starter next season. Had he left Georgia for the NFL, that might not have been the case. He also thought about NIL opportunities with the Bulldogs, but he noted that it didn't have a big factor in his decision.

“That was part of it, too, I waited three years and didn’t play, and obviously I’ve gotten the opportunity to play this season and it’s fun,” Beck said. “It’s a lot more fun to be on the field than not be on the field… Being the quarterback at the university of Georgia, there’s going to be NIL opportunities, but that was never a factor in coming back.”

Carson Beck will return to the Georgia football team next season, and the Bulldogs will certainly be excited to have QB1 back. Georgia should be a national title contender yet again next season.