Carson Beck’s first season as the starting quarterback for Georgia football produced an unbeaten regular season for a team coming off back-to-back national championships.

His decision to return in 2024 rather than enter the NFL draft is viewed as a big boost for the Bulldogs.

Sportsbooks are bullish on Beck.

Caesars lists him as the Heisman Trophy betting favorite for 2024 at +800, just ahead of five other quarterbacks as of Tuesday: Texas’ Quinn Ewers at +850, Oregon’s Dillon Gabriel at +900 and three players at +1200 in Alabama’s Jalen Milroe, LSU’s Garrett Nussmeier and Ohio State’s Will Howard.

“Obviously Georgia is going to be your 2024 favorite to win the national championship,” said Joey Feazel, the college football lead trader at Caesars. “Obviously a strong team, a strong coach. Easily this last year if the SEC title game doesn’t go the way it does, Georgia I could see winning that. I don’t think Michigan would have the answers for Georgia. That is kind of correlated in that aspect. Carson Beck getting that extra year to grow and being on such a talented team. Obviously, they lose some pieces with (Ladd) McConkey and (Brock) Bowers, but they have some good talent coming in and they just replaced a good tight end as well.”

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Georgia added Stanford tight end Benjamin Yurosek. Feazel said the Bulldogs have a tougher schedule but has the look of a team that could be dominant again.

BetMGM expects to release its Heisman odds in the next couple of weeks, but trading manager Seamus Magee said Ewers is more likely to be the favorite with Beck, who threw for 3,941 yards and 24 touchdowns last season, close behind.

“Beck’s going to be near the top,” Magee said. “He’s going to be the quarterback on the best team in the country. You can’t be wrong on that guy.”

FanDuel lists Beck and Ewers as the favorites at +750. DraftKings also has them at the top at +900.

Caesars put out its first 2024 Heisman odds before the national championship game last season.

The odds can change slightly even at this time of year. Milroe rose from +1400 and Gabriel from +1000 last week at Caesars.

“In this era, there’s just so much going on,” Magee said. “Someone transfers to a bigger school, their Heisman odds can get shorter. Chip Kelly going to Ohio State could potentially be a big impact for guys playing for Ohio State. We don’t like to leave ourselves open too much with something like this. We’re not going to take a ton of action on it right now so there’s not really a big hurry to get it up.”

Spring practice showings and injuries can cause changes.

“We don’t see a lot of action until we get into the summer, late summer; what the expectations of all these teams is going to be,” Feazel said. “A lot can change during the course of the season as we see every year with the Heisman Trophy.”

The last preseason Heisman favorite to win the award for college football’s top player was Oklahoma’s Baker Mayfield in 2017, Feazel said, and that happened before the Supreme Court ruling on sports betting that opened the door for it to become rampant nationally. In 2021, Heisman winner Bryce Young from Alabama was the second favorite. Last season, Jayden Daniels won despite being outside the upper tier when the season began.

“It’s subjective,” Feazel said. “It’s an interesting kind of market to book.”

USC’s Caleb Williams was the preseason favorite last year at +375 after winning in 2022 but didn’t finish in the top 10.

Beck is the favorite for now at what’s 8 to 1, but his odds to win it are only 11 percent.

“Favorites don’t usually win it, but it doesn’t tell the full story,” Feazel said. “If you’re at an 11 percent chance of winning, you’re already an underdog.”

Quarterbacks have won the last three Heismans and seven of the last eight.

Georgia running back Trevor Etienne, a Florida transfer, is listed at +5,000, ahead of the likes of former Oconee County quarterback Max Johnson now at North Carolina (+6000), former UGA commitment Dylan Raiola (+7500) who signed with Nebraska and Kentucky’s Brock Vandagriff (+10,000), the Georgia transfer from Prince Avenue Christian.

“If Carson Beck isn’t the reason Georgia is dominant in 2024, Etienne definitely could make a case,” Feazel said.

Georgia is the favorite at BetMGM and Caesars (both +350) to win the national championship.

“They’ve had insane recruiting classes the last few years," Magee said. "Ohio State, the question, was who’s going to be the quarterback? It looks like it’s probably going to be Will Howard right now. Is that enough to make them more the favorite than Georgia? Not in our opinion. Even Bama’s odds, Bama could be a little longer with some of their outgoings right now. …If you make them too long, you’re going to get smashed.”

Ohio State which has bolstered its roster through the transfer portal and added Kelly as offensive coordinator has moved from +500 to +450 to +400 at Caesars.

“They’re one of our biggest bet teams outside of Colorado going into this next year,” Feazel said. “We’re not going to see really the action ramp up until summer.”

Ohio State is at +500 at BetMGM followed by Texas at +750 and Alabama at +800.

A top player from teams contending for the national title often emerge as a Heisman finalist, but this is the first year of the 12-team playoff.

“I think it’s going to be a little bit more wide open,” Feazel said.

This article originally appeared on Athens Banner-Herald: What sportsbooks see in UGA football QB Carson Beck as Heisman favorite