Kirby Smart had to be careful. But Georgia’s head coach also had to be honest.

Smart was the winning coach in Saturday’s SEC championship game, yet he still had to tell reporters and the college football world exactly what his starting quarterback’s injury prognosis was going forward. Carson Beck left Georgia’s 22-19 overtime win over Texas. After the game, Smart gave an update on Beck’s status.

“Upper extremity injury. We don’t know to what extent. Basically, they looked at it in there and it looked OK, but he had no grip strength and couldn’t throw the ball into the locker room. It was a little painful for that,” Smart said. “We need to find out exactly what’s going on and get an MRI to investigate.”

Beck was injured on the last play of the first half and had to be replaced in the third quarter by Gunner Stockton, who led the Bulldogs to victory.

And although fate intervened a bit and Beck replaced Stockton on the final play of overtime when Stockton’s helmet was knocked off on the previous play, that didn’t mean all was well for Beck.

Beck couldn’t raise his right arm, but he was at least able to hand the ball off when he replaced Stockton on the final, fateful play in OT. On a first-and-goal from the 4-yard line, Beck simply had to pass the ball to Trevor Etienne, who ran up the middle for the game-winning touchdown.

At that moment, Georgia was the SEC champion with plenty of question marks at quarterback heading into Selection Sunday.