ATHENS — Jamaree Salyer is technically still a freshman, but the 6-foot-5, 318-pound offensive lineman gets it — really gets it.

As much as Salyer was a 5-star football prospect out of Atlanta’s Pace Academy, he also has a blue-chip personality and attitude when it comes to his approach to football and his priorities in life.

Salyer touched on a number of topics during his interview following Georgia’s Practice No. 8 on Thursday, among them:

What motivates him: “Just my family in general. I have a little brother at home that looks up to me … I have people at home that really, genuinely care about me. I’d do anything for them, and this is my chance to make them proud, so that’s what matters to me.”

His relationship with his mother: “That’s my girl right there, my mom. I can’t even put into words how much my mom means to me. I love my mom so much …. There’s a lot of days you can wake up for an 8 ‘clock class and be like, ‘Dang, I gotta go to class.’ But my mom, she works 12-hour shifts at night, she’s grinding, and that’s tough on a woman to carry. So I know if she’s working that hard, there’s nothing that I can’t do to work just as hard or even harder, because I know what the outcome can be, the potential.”

Competition on the offensive line: “It’s never that I want to beat this guy, it’s that I want to get better for me. I think since I’ve been here I’ve played about every position, definitely in practice. But mostly this spring I’ve been on the right side…. Every day you go out there and you feed off each other. Literally, I just walked out of the locker room and Isaiah (Wilson) said ‘You’re making me a better player.’ I feel the same way with Cade (Mays) and Ben (Cleveland). Ben is strong as an ox, I mean, you can’t do everything Ben does, but you can try. So that’s the thing, that’s what makes us so much better. We’re all trying to be as good as the next person, and that’s what makes us better as a group.”

On former high school teammate Andrew Thomas: “He’s my roommate. I can talk to him, talk about girls, and lots of stuff. It’s good to have a person to talk to about that, because a lot of freshmen they go to places like Stanford, across the country, and they don’t have anybody to talk to. But Andrew is a guy I’ve known since seventh grade, so it’s great to have a person like that…. Andrew is a little different, obviously you all know he’s a different type of athlete. He’s a freak. He can run, he’s got long arms, long legs, and he’s got feet like a rabbit.”

On scrimmaging D-Line: “It’s spring ball, it’s time to put up or shut up. We ran all spring, we ran and we ran, but it’s time to put on the pads and time to go to work and be physical, that’s when it’s fun, so that’s what we’re all here for…. Kirby didn’t recruit soft guys, so we all come out here to compete, everybody wants to play. If you line up across from me, we all have to play, we all have a job to do…. We all can play. It’s not like a keep your head up type of thing, because if you slack off or get on your heels, they’ll catch you off guard, too. They’ll put a hand in your throat or anything, and they like to twist and and do all this stuff. You have to keep your head up as an offensive lineman, you can’t give away too much. We’re all out there trying to get better.”

Georgia football OL Jamaree Salyer