High school rivals Lorenzo Carter and Orlando Brown to meet again in Rose Bowl

This won’t be the first time Lorenzo Carter and Orlando Brown have squared off against one another.

Carter was once a five-star outside linebacker at Norcross, who ultimately chose to play college football at Georgia. Brown was a massive offensive tackle at Peachtree Ridge, who decided to attend Oklahoma after Tennessee head coach Butch Jones pulled his scholarship offer.

The two stars went head-to-head in the Gwinnett County rivalry twice, with Carter’s Norcross team winning both. But Carter recalled the tough showdowns he endured with Brown, which will happen again when Georgia and Oklahoma face each other in Monday's Rose Bowl.

"Just his size, man. He's one of the biggest humans I've seen," Carter said. "He's just a big challenge. I loved it. He's competitive, I'm competitive. We got after it, I remember that. It was a good battle."

Brown said he got up to 390 pounds in high school. The son of the late Orlando “Zeus” Brown, who played in the NFL with the Cleveland Browns and Baltimore Ravens, Brown was tough for pass rushers to get around.

Brown remembered going against Carter and said that, back then, the former five-star recruit was quite the trash talker.

"Yeah, man, he's very chippy, very athletic, long guy," Brown said. "He was a great player then, he's a great player now."

Although the two weren’t more than acquaintances as high schoolers, they both showed a mutual respect for one another when the topic of their matchup came up.

Brown was a three-star recruit in high school and has since been molded into one of the best left tackles in the country. Having trimmed a lot of weight, Brown, an AP first-team All-America selection, is now 6-foot-8 and 345 pounds. He credited Oklahoma’s nutrition staff for helping him achieve his weight goal.

"There were times that, man, like everyone wants to eat a cheeseburger but you can't,” Brown said with a laugh. “That was just kind of what I was dealing with. Man, I just kind of persevered through it.”

Brown didn't move to Duluth until he was in high school. He actually spent most of his life in Cockeysville, Maryland, a suburb of Baltimore. By the time he ended up in the state of Georgia, he didn't have a connection to the Bulldogs and therefore wasn't too interested in them during his recruitment.

One of the big matchups in the Rose Bowl will be whether Georgia’s defense can apply pressure on Oklahoma quarterback Baker Mayfield, whose blindside is protected by none other than Brown. Having studied Georgia’s defense for some time, Brown is aware he and Carter are about to go to battle once again – except that this time a lot more is on the line.

"They've had a great year and we're excited for the matchup," Brown said.

This story was originally published December 30, 2017 at 1:47 PM with the headline "High school rivals Lorenzo Carter and Orlando Brown to meet again in Rose Bowl."