Kolton Houston is UGA's oldest football player - and one of the most important

Kolton Houston could be called the grandfather of the Georgia football team.

At 24 he's the oldest player in the locker room and the last remaining member of the 2010 recruiting class, a bunch that included Alec Ogletree (entering his third NFL season) and Hutson Mason (a coach at Colquitt County High). 

Entering his sixth season and manning the starting right tackle spot, Houston admits he almost gave up after three years of ineligibility. 

Watching his teammates beat Nebraska in the 2013 Capital One Bowl as he served as an unofficial assistant coach was too much to take. 

"I made up my mind then that I was done," he said. 

That was the frustration of three years of failed drugs tests. Houston maintained he never knowingly used any banned substances, that the positive tests were caused by an injection following shoulder surgery prior to his enrollment at Georgia.

The drug, norandrosterone, remained in his system and nothing Houston did, even surgery and sweat therapy, changed the test results. 

"A lot of times I would have been really frustrated," sophomore tight end Jeb Blazevich, an eighth-grader when Houston arrived at Georgia, said. "Frustrated with the people around me, with God and it would have been 

a really tough time. I am really impressed with how he handled it."

A week after his mother and UGA's director of sports medicine Ron Courson begged Houston to take one final drug test in the offseason of 2013, he relented and passed. 

He was finally eligible to play for the Georgia Bulldogs.

"I have the utmost respect for him and the way he handled it," senior offensive lineman and best friend John Theus said. "I've never been through anything like that, thank God."

After starting six games in 2013 and all 13 last year, Houston was granted a sixth year of eligibility by the NCAA last December.

The Buford native played last season as if everything might be the last time he did it. His last fall camp, his last Georgia Tech game, his last bowl game. 

But he always planned on applying for a sixth year. 

"This year it is a little more surreal," Houston said. "It's kind of amazing that I've been here for six years."

When Houston learned he was granted an extra year, he had a range of thoughts running through his head. The first, was that he would probably be the oldest athlete in Athens. 

But he was also thrilled with the possibility of getting to accomplish all of his football goals. 

"I want to go out and get a black plaque (for winning the national title) like I've always wanted to for six years," Houston said. "I want to be the first class that actually finishes the drill, to go out on top."