ATHENS, Ga. — They were the most tense, most exciting moments of the Georgia football season, arguably the most exciting in the entire college football season: an epic game against Georgia Tech that stretched to eight overtimes and well past midnight. And as Nazir Stackhouse stood on the sideline, he was fighting an internal battle.

Stay awake, he kept telling himself. Somebody score and end this. Stay awake. Don’t fall asleep.

That’s what happened a few years before at Tennessee. The Georgia offense was on a long drive, and Stackhouse, a nose tackle, was on the bench with the rest of the defensive linemen.

“I’m on the bench fighting sleep, fighting it,” Stackhouse said.

Then, like it so often happens, bam. He was out.

Stackhouse was diagnosed with narcolepsy during his first year at Georgia. During his career, he started 42 games and won two national championships. Now he’s an NFL draft prospect, while still dealing with the condition on an everyday — or every minute — basis.

For one thing, Stackhouse rarely drives. He has a license but always has someone in the car with him and keeps the drives short. He never falls asleep when he’s on the field during game action, whether it be a game or practice. He did fall asleep during meetings, but coaches would work with him; Kirby Smart was known to lean over to tap Stackhouse: “Right, Nazir? Right?”

“Yeah, yeah, coach,” Stackhouse would reply, jolted back awake.

“More than once,” Smart said with a chuckle. “It was real. I’ve never seen a guy on the sideline in the game go out.”

Smart mimicked going to sleep.

“But he’s a great kid,” Smart said. “Once they got it under control, it was not a big deal. … It never affected his performance.”

NFL people, who tend to project Stackhouse anywhere from the fourth to the seventh round, don’t appear to think the narcolepsy is an issue. One area scout said that it “sounds like he has a handle on it, so I wouldn’t call it a red flag or anything.”

“It’s a new one for me,” a second area scout said. “Haven’t had this pop up with a player before. The coaches say it isn’t an issue.”

Stackhouse talks about the condition freely, how suddenly it hits, and can’t help but laugh at some of those times. He once slept while on a treadmill. He felt it coming on, so he grabbed the handrails, then the next thing he knew he woke back up.

“And I’m like, ‘Damn, how long was I out?’ I look down. I was down there for like 12 minutes,” Stackhouse said.

Narcolepsy symptoms usually begin between the ages of 7 and 25 and often are misdiagnosed, according to the National Institutes of Health. The exact cause is unknown, there is no cure, and the condition will be lifelong. It is a rare condition, estimated to be found in about .002 percent of the U.S. population. But some of the symptoms can be managed with a combination of medications and lifestyle changes, according to the NIH.

That Stackhouse is an athlete helps. The NIH says daily exercise of at least 20 minutes improves nighttime sleep quality and reduces “excessive daytime sleepiness.” Eating healthy helps too, so access to Georgia’s training table during the past few years has been beneficial.

Stackhouse dealt with it long before college. Growing up in Stone Mountain, Ga., he fell asleep in class. His mother started taking him to sleep studies when he was 11. The family didn’t think it was much of a problem at first. Then, as he got older, the problem didn’t go away, but it was too expensive to get an official diagnosis or even treatment. When he got to Georgia, his mother asked the medical staff to test her son, and the narcolepsy was confirmed.

Georgia put him in touch with a pulmonary doctor in Athens, and Stackhouse took a medication, WAKIX, for about a year but stopped because it gave him headaches. Stackhouse is looking at other possible medications, but otherwise just has years of knowing how to manage it on his own. If he feels sleep coming on, he moves around, if he can, or takes precautions, like the time on the treadmill.

“It never affected me on the field,” he said. “It was if I was stationary, comfortable. That’s where it hits.”

On the field, Stackhouse seemed unaffected. He played as a reserve on Georgia’s 2020 and 2021 teams, which had a remarkable collection of defensive line talent, including nose tackle Jordan Davis and defensive tackle Jalen Carter. When Davis left after the 2021 season, Stackhouse took his starting job. He had three tackles and a hurry of C.J. Stroud in the semifinals of the College Football Playoff and a tackle for loss in the national championship game.

Off the field, Stackhouse dealt with narcolepsy, often during games. When a game was in hand, and the starters were pulled, Stackhouse would head into a tent on the sideline and fall asleep.

“It definitely didn’t affect my playing,” he said. “But say we were playing one of those, I don’t know, I would say under-talented teams. I’d play one or two quarters. After that, I’m on the sideline. We had a tent, and I would literally sit down and watch the guys play. And I’d fall asleep.”

But he did not during the epic eight-overtime win over Georgia Tech. In fact, Stackhouse fought it off so well that when he got home, he actually couldn’t get to sleep for three more hours.

“Narcolepsy is so unpredictable,” Stackhouse said. “Because people are like, ‘Are you tired, are you tired?’ No, I’m not tired, I just fell asleep. I dozed off. It’s like a curse.”

Dane Brugler contributed to this story.

(Top photo: Todd Kirkland / Getty Images)