Georgia freshman Juan Gaston gives offensive line a barge-like presence

Georgia routinely has signed 5-star offensive linemen on the recruiting trail. Amarius Mims and Monroe Freeling both fit that description.

Gaston’s final recruiting rankings had him as the No. 62 overall recruit in the country for this past cycle. Of the five offensive linemen Georgia signed, he was the highest rated in the 2025 recruiting cycle.

It’s no secret at this point that Gaston has a chance to really push for playing time early in his career. He still has a long way to go to be the first freshman to start on the offensive line since Cade Mays did so during the 2018 season.

Not just mentally, but physically as well.

“Being one of the new freshmen who’s continued his journey to lose weight,” Georgia coach Kirby Smart said. “He’s really fighting that. He’s had an impressive two weeks at going down on his weight.

“I’ve been proud of him for that, but he still has a ways to go.”

Georgia has made it a habit in recent cycles to sign massive offensive linemen. Not just in terms of height — Gaston is listed at 6-foot-7 — but weight as well. Gaston is listed at 360 pounds per the Georgia roster. That is the heaviest of anyone on the team. He does not need to be eating four or five dozen eggs a day at this point.

Getting his weight under control — Mims' listed weight during his junior season was at 340 — is the most important thing Gaston can do to help himself get on the field.

He has all the tools a coach would want in an offensive lineman, but Gaston’s ceiling isn’t the only reason there’s been more chatter around him than there was when Freeling or Mims first stepped on the Georgia practice fields.

For the first time since perhaps Kirby Smart’s first at Georgia, the offensive line is a position of concern. The Bulldogs struggled to run the ball and at times couldn’t hold up in pass protection last season.

Now Georgia has to replace four starters from the 2024 offensive line, including multi-year veterans such as Tate Ratledge and Dylan Fairchild.

“I think it really just came back on us and our execution,” Freeling said. “I think that sometimes we were more worried about not failing than succeeding. And I think we thought we were more just senior heavy, so I think we thought we were there. But I really think that we should have focused more on our fundamentals.”

Georgia’s offensive line, by nature, is going to be much younger this season. Earnest Greene is the only offensive lineman on Georgia’s team with more than five starts under his belt.

The pure snap counts, though, paint a less bleak picture of the offensive line. Freeling, Micah Morris and Drew Bobo all bring back starting experience. They’ve played in big-time SEC games, while still having obvious areas where they can improve.

“A lot of it just comes down to ourselves,” Freeling said. “You can blame the coaches all you want, but at the end of the day, if the players don’t succeed, you’ve got to look in the mirror. We’re the ones that have got to listen to the coach, and I think it falls on us.”

Freeling is limited in what he can do this spring as he recovers from labrum surgery he had in January. The hope is that he’ll be fully healthy to start preseason camp, something he wasn’t at the end of last season.

Freeling’s absence does create more opportunities for Gaston. Greene and Freeling likely would be Georgia’s starting tackles if the Bulldogs were to face Marshall this weekend.

But there’s a lot of time between now and Aug. 30 for Gaston and the rest of Georgia’s younger offensive linemen to shape up.

“It’s a new cast of characters and they’ve gotta grow up and play,” Smart said. “So Bo (Hughley), Jah Jackson, Nyier (Daniels), fighting Malachi (Tolliver), the guard guys, I guess, (Michael) Uini, (Marques) Easley. Then Juan ... then Mason Short, Cortez Smith. I mean, all those guys are really competing in there.

“So, I mean, we’re fortunate that we have probably three deep on the offensive line in spring practice. I think most of my peers don’t have three deep, but it’s not the quality depth that we’ve had in the past.”

Smart did not mention Daniel Calhoun by name, but he’s someone who has gotten plenty of buzz. A year ago, he found himself in a spot similar to where Gaston is now.

Calhoun needed to lose weight after he arrived as Georgia’s top-ranked offensive line signee. But ahead of him on the depth chart were Ratledge, Fairchild and Morris.

Gaston doesn’t have the same logjam. Hughley, Jackson and Jamal Meriweather are ahead of the freshman offensive lineman, but none has the experience that Ratledge or Fairchild did. Even Freeling, with all of his five career starts, is not demonstrably far ahead of Gaston in terms of playing experience.

“The young guys, like Daniel Calhoun. Today was Michael Uini taking those ones reps,” defensive lineman Jordan Hall said Tuesday. “So, those guys stepping up. I mean, they’re not as physical as the more polished vets in the room. But, I mean, everybody’s, it’s just Georgia. Everybody’s going to be strong. But those guys, I feel like, are the most up to tune when it comes to physicality.”

Gaston doesn’t have an easy path to playing time. Even with the questions about the state of the offensive line, he’s going to have to continue to work this spring and summer to get himself to a point to where he could help the Georgia offensive line.

Fortunately for Gaston, a number of factors beyond his control have worked in his favor. He has an opportunity that frankly has not been presented to many first-year offensive linemen under Smart.

Time will tell if Gaston’s strong first impression will be a lasting one by the time the 2025 season begins.