Jordan Morgan stands 6-feet-5-inches tall and weighs close to 300 pounds. In his first season of college football, he started two games at the premiere position of the offensive line – left tackle.

He showed enough talent, hard work and maturity to excite his coaches and teammates for the remainder of his collegiate career.

Now, ask him how his high school football career began, and you're going to get a little bit of a different of a tale than his college success story.

"I actually tried to play quarterback as a freshman," a smiling Morgan said of his first season at Cholla High School in Tucson.

Morgan was just 5-10 as a freshman and split quarterback duties with a teammate for the Chargers. Following his freshman year of school, Morgan transferred to Marana High School. By the time his junior year began, he sprouted from 5-10 to 6-4.

He also began filling in his large frame and found a home on the offensive line. It was a late fit to a position that now is home to Morgan, but it makes sense when considering Morgan's path to football.

He didn't start playing until he was 11 at the urging of his older brother, John. He played for a year in elementary school, before bypassing it in middle school.

"I was a little, fat kid," Morgan said joking. "I didn't know anything about football or what I was doing."

But by the time he got to his junior year of high school, that was clearly not the case. After his junior season with Marana, Morgan began going to summer camps, where he began impressing college coaches. A relative unknown because of his late growth and position change, coaches liked Morgan's athleticism and size.

"I didn't know how the recruiting process really worked," Morgan said. "It was all really new to me. Coaches were telling me I was under the radar and they were just getting to know me. A couple of the coaches told me I was really going to have to work hard, and that's what I started doing. The interest really started rolling in after those camps in the summer."

A few weeks into his senior season, Morgan began receiving offers from major programs and went from an unknown prospect to a sought after lineman who could help teams right away. The son of a nurse and a Tucson policeman, Morgan loves his hometown of Tucson and couldn't pass up the opportunity to suit up for his home town team.

"I had a lot of people pulling me different directions," Morgan said. "My family wanted me to stay here, so they could come to my games and not worry about missing any. For me, it felt like a really good school to play at and earn a chance. I knew I could work hard and earn playing time. I had great relationships with the coaches, and that made it easier to decide if I wanted to stay home or not.

"In the end, I felt like staying here was really good for me and being able to be a role model for kids in this community is something special."

Morgan played in six games for the Wildcats last season as a true freshman and figures to be a critical piece up front as a sophomore in 2020.

At times throughout the year, Morgan would pause and think about how fast his football journey is unfolding. It was just five years ago that Morgan was standing in the backfield as a quarterback.

Now, he's on the line – where he likes it a lot more – charged with protecting the men in the backfield.

"This past season, it was surreal, especially at the start," Morgan said. "It was really a rush to be able to compete against grown men pretty much. It snapped me into football. It was like, 'this is your life right here. This is your chance to show you can play at this level.' It's been a great experience."