When Carson Beck transferred to Miami with a half-working elbow from Georgia, fans had plenty to say about him. Some even labeled him as having chickened out for $4 million. The former Georgia gunslinger knew he had to earn Miami’s locker room respect from the ground up, brick by brick. Looking back, Carson Beck explains just how many sacrifices he had to make.

On January 17, the Miami quarterback sat down at the national championship game media day and talked about his Miami journey with Danny Kanell.

“I did think coming into this university and understanding that, you know, I wasn’t just going to have respect from everybody just because I stepped on campus,” Carson Beck said. “I think it was honestly harder to earn the respect of everyone around me because I couldn’t go play… I feel like going out and playing and showing people, like, ‘Yo, I’m here. We’re going to have success. We’re going to be able to win.’

“It’s a lot easier to earn respect that way. So I had to try to find different ways to earn the respect of my teammates and earn the trust of my teammates.”

Carson Beck started his Miami journey from a low point. Some coaches around the program described him as a “broken human being” after a rough exit from Georgia and a serious UCL injury. Instead of acting like a two-time national champion, he won over the locker room by being incredibly humble and working harder than anyone else to get back on the field.

Since he couldn’t throw a football for the first four months after his surgery, he spent his time building real friendships. He arrived in Coral Gables in January 2025 and immediately started bonding with other transfers over their shared ‘second chance’ mentality. It didn’t take much longer for the fans and the locker room to acknowledge that.

Teammates saw him in the training room before dawn every single day, pushing through intense pain just to regain his range of motion. That itself had the Miami locker room rally behind him. Even the offensive Coordinator Shannon Dawson noticed that Beck became the guy who kept everything moving in the right direction, not by shouting, but by being an “elite human being” who consistently backed everyone else in the locker room.

Mind you, the Hurricanes’ locker room already knew he had that dawg in him from his final game at Georgia, when he re-entered the SEC Championship with his injured arm dangling at his side just to make a crucial handoff for a touchdown.

However, there was some kind of occasional tension in the locker room until week 10 of the regular season. Nonetheless, by the time the playoffs came around, he had already won the hearts of his comrades and become the undisputed leader of the Hurricanes. On top of that, he also traded in his lifestyle. For example, the 23-year-old traded his Lamborghini for a truck to have a more focused, secluded life. All this finally paid dividends in the field so far.

Carson Beck’s chances of making history

Most experts have the Hoosiers favored by about 8.5 points, citing their incredible discipline and the fact that they just don’t make mistakes. However, the Hurricanes have a huge emotional edge: they are playing in their own “backyard” at Hard Rock Stadium, making them the first team in the modern playoff era to play for the title in their home stadium.

For Carson Beck, this game is the ultimate “redemption” story. He’s already been a winner at Georgia, but he transferred to Miami to prove he could lead a program back to the top on his own terms. Beck has been on fire lately, winning nine straight games against ranked opponents while playing with a “nothing to lose” attitude.

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While Indiana is the “safe” pick because it is so well-coached and balanced, Miami is the “relentless” team that keeps finding ways to win close playoff games. If the Hurricanes can win the turnover battle and get a few big plays from their freshman star Malachi Toney and make run-game works with Mark Fletcher, they could absolutely shock the world. Of course, it wouldn’t be possible without the step-up from the Hurricanes’ D-line.