Georgia
Redemption for Carson Beck
Following their 28-10 loss to Ole Miss, there were a lot of questions about the No. 12-ranked Georgia Bulldogs. Would they make the College Football Playoffs? Could Carson Beck and the offense find the explosive plays and consistency to beat Tennessee?
Beck and the Bulldogs answered those questions with a 31-17 statement win over Tennessee.
At the start of the contest, Georgia’s offense struggled as it had earlier this season: three drives and three punts.
But when it looked like another slow start could cost Georgia its playoff hopes, Beck and the Bulldogs offense found their form. With a seven-play, 75-yard drive, Beck put the struggles of the past six games behind him.
First, he hit Dominic Lovett for a big 38-yard gain on third down. Then, he moved the chains with his legs, scrambling for 14 yards on a run where he even lowered his shoulder into a defender. Finally, he capped it off with a 19-yard surgical touchdown strike to Oscar Delp.
“Yeah, it was huge. I think he got going,” Georgia head coach Kirby Smart said of the long pass to Lovett. “I mean, Carson threw some good balls before that. We just didn’t always catch him. And he’s done a good job of that.”
Georgia would score on four of its next five drives. Following the early 10-point deficit, Georgia outscored Tennessee 31-7 in the final three quarters. Beck completed 25 of his 40 passes for 347 yards and two touchdowns. But he also proved effective with his legs, rushing for 32 yards and a touchdown on three attempts. More importantly, after six straight games with a turnover, Beck protected the football.
“We had some plays for him. And sometimes you’ve got to man up,” Smart said about Beck’s scrambling. “I texted him earlier in the week and said, ‘If we do this, are you down with it?’ And he said, ‘I’m going to get it, Coach. Just give me the ball.’ Some of them were not by design. The scramble was a great play that he scores on.”
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Kirk Fordice-like Rick Jackson is sounding a whole lot like Daniel Kirkwood Fordice as he tries to be elected Georgia’s next governor.
Fordice came out of nowhere — actually, Vicksburg is somewhere but you know what I mean — in 1991 to become a two-term Mississippi governor.
He had money but nothing like Jackson, a billionaire businessman who’s also trying to emerge from nowhere politically to win Georgia’s top office.
“The establishment hated Trump, because they couldn’t control him. They are going to hate me,” Jackson says in an ad for Georgia’s Republican Primary on May 19, sounding like one of my favorite Mississippi governors — Fordice, because of his unpredictable personality (he could vilify or charm you, all in one sentence), not his politics. He died in 2004 of cancer.
I stood by a cafe entrance one morning, waiting to cover a Fordice speech. When he appeared, I stuck out my hand to shake his. “I’m not shaking your damn hand. You’re part of the problem down there (referring to the newspaper),” he told me, smiling and moving on.
Jackson rose to become one of economic giant-Georgia’s wealthiest people. He came from Atlanta’s rough midtown area, ending up in the foster care system. He left college due to poor financial circumstances.
The 71-year-old Jackson wormed his way into the dynamic city’s business scene in the late 1970s, mostly of the healthcare variety with mixed success before starting a workforce staffing and services company and later an antibiotics manufacturing plant. He turned those businesses into billion-dollar enterprises.
“It’s God’s money,” he said in rural Blakely, and he’s been charitable with it.
Jackson doesn’t try to hide his vast wealth. His family lives in a 48,000-square-foot mansion at Cumming, a place of nearly 100,000 people near Atlanta in Forsyth County, which once promoted its almost all-white population as a virtue.
Atlanta Journal-Constitution columnist Bill Torpy recently wrote that Jackson will spend a ton of his own money in seeking another mansion, the one occupied by Georgia’s governor. Torpy noted that present Lt. Gov. Burt Jones was once heavily favored to win the primary race, but he’s fallen behind Jackson’s bold money bid.
“The one-time front-runner in the Republican primary (Jones) has been relegated to No. 2, the result of a $100 million Mack truck running him over.
Rick Jackson, a billionaire healthcare tycoon, a man with a sly smile and reptilian gaze, is the guy driving that truck,” Torpy wrote.
The GOP field includes Secretary of State Brad Raffensberger, who spurned Trump’s demand to find 11,780 votes that would’ve allowed him to win Georgia in 2020.
Fordice was effective with some bombastic rhetoric during his run for governor, but I don’t remember it reaching the histrionic level employed by Jackson. In a major ad blitz, often referencing (Georgia college student) Laken Riley’s murderer, Jackson promises that unauthorized immigrants committing violent crimes will be “deported or departed … any questions?”
In another ad, Jackson growled, “Like President Trump, I don’t owe anybody anything, and like you, I’m sick of career politicians.”
Fordice spent only $1 million to get himself elected Mississippi’s governor. He somewhat sneaked up on the establishment, riding no escalator to the first floor of his Vicksburg concrete river mats-contracting office to declare his intentions. Who could ever forget his announcement seeking the governorship that ran on page 5 of the Clarion Ledger?
Recent polling ahead of Georgia’s May primaries for governor shows the eventual Republican nominee faces a strong Democrat in the November general election, most likely former Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms. That’ll require another whole pot of money.
— Mac Gordon, a native of McComb, is a retired Mississippi newspaperman. He can be reached at macmarygordon@gmail.com.
Gulfstream recently announced a $5 million investment in Georgia education, welcoming students and leaders to its Savannah headquarters.
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