CHARLOTTE — Monroe Freeling's one of these new-age kids, who grew up in an NIL world.

Still, it's been a minute since he's been recruited.

But as soon as right guard Robert Hunt realized that right tackle Taylor Moton wouldn't be immediately available in this camp, he started working on Freeling to come to his side of the line.

That's why Dave Canales was confident to leave veteran Rasheed Walker on at left tackle, and move Freeling into the vacancy on the right rather than having him compete.

"He and I had a conversation, and I don't mind telling you this, but I just said, in my mind, I wanted Monroe to go out there, earn the job, win the job," Canales admitted. "And now we're in a situation we need him to go now and and we have guys behind him that can offer that depth part but, he didn't blink and he starts smiling and said at one point in the summer, he and Rob who were some of the guys working out together and Rob was like, you should come play over next to me and just kind of recruiting him to play on that right side.

"And you can imagine those two monsters next to each other? So we're excited about it, you know, and, and there'll be a learning curve on either side for him, and so we made that decision and felt good about the group, by leaving Rasheed at left and having Monroe go over to right."

It's a big ask for the soon-to-be 22-year-old (his birthday is Saturday), but he's handling it as well as a rookie with 18 college starts can.

At Georgia, most of Freeling's playing experience was on the left. He played 747 total snaps in his college career, 739 of them on the left (with one at right tackle and the other seven as an extra blocker/tight end).

But like Canales, Hunt saw his length and wingspan, and a frame that's already up to 325 pounds, and started thinking about the possibilities.

"After they found out like the T-Mo news, (Hunt) just kept on saying, every single day he's like, 'Hey, you're coming with me,'" Freeling grinned. "You're coming to my side. I'm going to talk to them.

"And I don't know if he did talk to him or not, but I texted him whenever I found out the news, and I was like, 'Hey, you got, you got what you wanted, let's work.'"

That attitude is welcome, because a once-deep position is now thin, at least until Moton and Ikem Ekwonu return (both potentially during the regular season).

Freeling said he was "psyched for the opportunity," but knows it's the first day of a long process.

"Anywhere they would have put me, I would have been happy to go," Freeling said. "And it's just how it is now, I've got to step up and be ready."

Freeling mentioned the need to polish techniques and work on his "flexibility" (of hips and ankles, rather than switching sides), but deferred to the "it's football" stance mostly.

He also has Moton in his ear every day, and joked that the veteran is taking on an active role.

"He's super helpful," Freeling said, already picking up on quarterback Bryce Young's favorite word. "I mean, I'm sitting right next to him in the meeting room. And it's always been the days that he hasn't practiced, whenever he had the vet days, he'd be talking the most. And I think they already gave him a warning about not talking so much in meetings, but he's in my corner all the time.

"Just having him in my corner, any question I have, technique and him even just watching my reps, and I can come and ask somebody because I know coaches have to watch a lot, just having somebody in my corner kind of throughout this whole process and a new position really, is good."