By John Frierson
Staff Writer

Monroe Freeling is used to being the biggest man in the room — any room. When you’re 6-foot-7 and 315 pounds like Freeling, an offensive lineman on the fifth-ranked Georgia football team, you don’t spend much of your life looking up when you talk to people. The same goes for fellow lineman Micah Morris, who is three inches shorter at 6-4 and even heavier at 330 pounds.

These are big men playing a tough, physical sport, and they’re both having to look up, in some cases way up, at some of their teammates. Two of the Bulldogs’ offensive linemen, Marcus Harrison and Nyier Daniels, are listed at 6-8, and the tallest of the bunch, Jahzare Jackson, is 6-10. Jackson is believed to be the tallest player ever to suit up for the Bulldogs.

“It’s definitely weird sometimes when I’m out in public, but whenever I’m in the locker room, it kind of feels like I’m at home, I’m with my people. Everyone’s relatively the same size, or everyone’s bigger, broader,” Freeling said.

“It is weird having to look up to somebody when you’re talking to them,” Morris said of being around so many teammates taller than he is.

The 2025 Bulldogs have 22 players listed at 6-5 or taller, with another 24 measuring 6-4. At the other end of the spectrum are seven players listed at 5-10, and four at 5-9. One of those 5-9 players is wide receiver Sacovie White-Helton, who has four catches for 41 yards through three games, including a 17-yarder in last Saturday’s thrilling win at No. 15 Tennessee.

“It just shows how the game of football can bring everybody together, like it doesn’t matter. You can be one of the smallest guys or the biggest thing you’ve ever seen — you all play the same sport and you’re all locked in for the same goal. You’re all part of the same brotherhood. I think it’s amazing,” Morris said.

Wideout Zachariah Branch is listed at 5-10. In the locker room and on the sideline, he is often in the land of giants.

“There are definitely some big human beings around,” said Branch, who has 11 catches for a team-high 181 yards and two touchdowns heading into Saturday’s game against No. 17 Alabama at Sanford Stadium.

“It’s crazy to think how big some people actually are, but I know what I’m capable of when I’m on the field, so I don’t feel like, Oh, dang, they’re way bigger than me. They are physically, but when I go out there, I think nobody can mess with me.”

Back in 2010, Georgia had 19 players 6-5 or taller on its roster. Five years later, the 2015 team had just seven players 6-5 or above, led by outside linebacker Lorenzo Carter and offensive lineman Kendall Baker, who are 6-6. In 2020, the Bulldogs had 25 players 6-5 or taller, with five listed at 6-7.

Georgia’s men’s basketball team has nine players listed at 6-5 or taller, topped out by 7-1 freshman center Jackson McVey, who at 240 pounds is more than 100 pounds lighter than some of the football team’s big guys. Jackson was headed down the basketball path for many years before deciding late that he wanted to give football a shot. Morris also played a lot of basketball growing up, which has helped with his quickness and overall athleticism.

“I was okay; I was good at rebounding. I couldn’t shoot, but I could get the rebound and put the ball back in,” Morris said.

Former Bulldog defensive lineman Jordan Davis, now with the Philadelphia Eagles, was listed at 6-6 and 330 pounds while at Georgia. Davis made headlines Sunday when he blocked a field goal against the Los Angeles Rams and returned it 61 yards for a touchdown, sprinting at more than 18 mph, per reports, on his way to the end zone. Davis’ personality is as big as his frame, and he said one of the things people his size deal with is a lot of attention. “It seems like all eyes are on you all the time,” he said back in 2019. He also thought “the stature kind of helps with being a leader — if I say something, people will listen.”

Davis, like a lot of current Bulldogs around his size, also said air travel is one of the biggest challenges the big guys face. From bumping their heads as they crouch down to enter the airplane, to not exactly fitting into a lot of airplane seats.

“Flying coach is tough,” Freeling said.

So is riding in the backseat of a car.

“Getting in the backseat is extremely hard, especially if you’ve got to sit behind the driver, because the driver has to get the seat back some anyway so they can drive,” Morris said. “And then you’re crammed in.”

Freeling wears a size 16 shoe; Morris is a 15. Finding those sizes in styles that they want isn’t easy. Nor is finding clothes that fit.

“Most shoe sizes, at least cool shoes, stop at 13,” Freeling said.

In most worlds, linebacker Chris Cole, who is listed at 6-3 and 235 pounds, would be considered big. But on the Bulldogs’ squad, he’s about average-sized.

“To see so many people 6-5, 6-6, 6-10, you walk around here every day like, Wow, I’m actually not that tall,” Cole said. “It’s made me better to go against them every day. You know you’re going against a great opponent, and you know that’s going to get you better.”

Georgia punter Brett Thorson is no little guy himself at 6-2 and 235 pounds, but before he came to Georgia from Melbourne, Australia, he’d never seen athletes like the ones he plays with every day. Thorson grew up playing Australian Rules Football, and there are some tall players around, but none as big and strong as his Bulldog teammates.

“There are 22 players running out there,” he said of Australian Rules Football, “and maybe three of them are 6-foot-5 or taller, and they’re all skinny. To come here and see some freak athletes be that tall, that big, and also move like they do, sometimes I’m like, We could take all these guys out to Australian football and dominate.”

Assistant Sports Communications Director John Frierson is the staff writer for the UGA Athletic Association and curator of the ITA Men’s Tennis Hall of Fame. You can find his work at: Frierson Files.