Christen Miller welcomes ‘burden’ of being Georgia’s best defensive lineman

ATHENS — There is a stark difference in how teammates talk about Christen Miller and the way Georgia coaches discuss the junior defensive tackle.

From a teammate’s perspective, they light up when asked about him. His personality shines even bigger than his 6-foot-4, 310-pound frame.

“He’s awesome. Everyone loves him,” tight end Oscar Delp said. “He’s a great leader and he’s a great football player. He’s gotten bigger, he’s gotten stronger, and he looks good right now. So I’m excited to see him play this year.”

Miller displays a jolly nature both on and off the field. Away from the gridiron, he’s shown an interest in music and has released music under his alter ego, Percy. His Instagram page features as many fashion-related posts as football ones.

Miller is clearly liked and respected by his teammates and the college football media in general. He’s not dissimilar from Jordan Davis in that regard, a former gregarious Georgia giant who went on to be a first-round pick in the 2022 NFL draft after leading Georgia to a national title.

But when Georgia coaches speak of Miller, it’s clear they want and need him to play with more of an edge this season. In that sense, they’d probably like him to be like Jalen Carter, even if they’ll never publicly compare him in such a way.

Miller has All-American potential and is the most important piece on Georgia’s defensive line. If Georgia is to achieve its goal of winning a national championship, it needs Miller to emerge as a new archetype: a blend of Carter and Davis.

“He’s our most experienced player,” Georgia coach Kirby Smart said. “He has taken on this role of knowing the burden lies with him to set a standard for that group. And if we’re going to be good upfront, and we’re going to stop the run, it starts with that group. I mean, it’s everybody, but it really starts with the defensive line and what kind of mentality that room has.”

Miller signed with Georgia as a four-star prospect in the 2022 recruiting cycle. In his final year at Cedar Grove High School in Ellenwood, he led his team to a state championship, a feat he hopes to re-create with Georgia in 2025.

He was one of four defensive line signees in that class, yet he is the only one who made it to year four in Athens.

Mykel Williams was a first-round pick by the San Francisco 49ers. Bear Alexander and Shone Washington both ended up transferring out of the Georgia program.

Miller enters the season as a much-hyped player. He’s the No. 56 overall player in the sport, according to ESPN, with linebacker CJ Allen being the only Bulldog earning a higher ranking. But Miller’s path to this point was lined with potholes that have derailed other promising Georgia careers.

He arrived in Athens with an injured knee. Miller would play in only four games as a freshman and not record any stats. Williams, conversely, led the team in sacks as Georgia won a national championship.

Miller flirted with the idea of leaving, announcing his plans to enter the transfer portal in April 2024. Not even 24 hours later, he reversed course and remained at Georgia.

“Gotta finish what I started with my bruddas,” Miller said in a post on X.

Last season, Miller sustained a shoulder injury that kept him out of the SEC championship game. He played through pain and returned against Notre Dame in the College Football Playoff, but the injury required offseason surgery.

That most recent injury might have been a blessing for Georgia, even if it hurt the Bulldogs at the end of the 2024 season. He could’ve entered the NFL draft alongside Williams, but Miller bypassed it to become the biggest piece of the 2025 Georgia defense.

“I think he’s … there’s times he’s been at a really high level,” Georgia defensive coordinator Glenn Schumann said. “The challenge there is sustaining it, because his level of intensity, effort, his level of communication, just his urgency is at an all-time high, which is what it needs to be. We need him to be a guy that can both anchor in the middle, but also be really disruptive.”

To this point, Miller doesn’t have the stats you would expect for a second-team All-American. In 12 games last season, he finished with 27 tackles and 3.5 tackles for loss. In his first three seasons, he has only 2.5 sacks.

The video shows Miller doing more than the numbers, which explains his rise to stardom this offseason.

Because he is a Georgia defensive lineman, he gets some benefit of the doubt in terms of what he can possibly become as a leading face on the Georgia defense.

Davis and Carter went on to be first-team All-Americans in their final seasons. The Bulldogs need that kind of season from Miller if they’re to do what they hope.

“He’s a really good athlete,” Schumann said. “So he needs to add value in terms of disrupting plays when we do move him. Then I think interior pass rush is really, there’s ways to navigate edge pass rush on offense. It’s really difficult to deal with the dominant pass rusher in the middle, in terms of pocket push and when to match up some guarding centers. The more he can do that, we need that from our interior D line, not just the run-stopping ability, but pass-rush ability, and ability to disrupt plays and push the pocket.

“So that’s what we need from him.”

Georgia won’t measure Miller only by his disruptive play this season. Because of the youth and inexperience on the defensive line, his leadership abilities will be put to the test.

In that sense, Miller’s outgoing personality may not seem to be a natural fit for a serious football man. Miller is the oldest player among the defensive linemen, in addition to being the most proven.

The Bulldogs are counting on both of those factors showing up in 2025.

To this point, Smart said he believes Miller approached the coming season the right way. He’s been Georgia’s most disruptive defensive lineman during preseason camp, though that might not be saying all that much given what else Georgia has on the defensive line.