MOULTRIE – If there ever was a time when a larger senior class was needed, it would be on the last drive of the 15th game of Colquitt County High’s 2017 season.

But with a 12th grade group where perhaps 13 made significant contributions, the Packers were right there, one bad snap or errant kick away from claiming the GHSA’s top prize.

The last time Rush Propst and the Colquitt County High football program hoisted the first-place trophy (2015, completing a two-year perfect run of 30-0), the senior class of that team two years ago totaled around 40. So a conclusion can be drawn that whether it’s 13 or 40 or any number in-between for seniors on a football team, Colquitt County is a favorite in any given season to go a long way. That’s with or without a region championship, for those 2017 Packers came in third place in 1-7A due to two down-to-the-wire losses to conclude the regular season.

All they have to be are good to great football players who follow the process day after day, from January down to December.

“I’m torn on that,” said Propst as he was setting up a new office on the Colquitt County High campus Thursday. “I’m a big believer … in squeezing that lemon. I thought we squeezed every drop, every fiber we could out of that lemon before we gave it away. Ninety-nine.nine percent of the time, I would rather have a large senior class with a bunch of leadership. Although we had a very good year, if we had more senior leadership … there were things that fell apart in that last game, especially on that last drive that I don’t think a senior group would have allowed to happen. Although we nearly pushed it across the finish line, to lose on the last play of the game, literally after time expired, is one of the hardest things I’ve had to go through. I never had a loss more traumatic than that one.”

That fourth quarter vs. North Gwinnett – on North Gwinnett’s field – had all those twists and turns that it ranks up there with Monday’s Georgia loss to Alabama in the college National Championship and even Atlanta’s Super Bowl loss to New England. Quarterback Steven Krajewski, a senior, engineered a drive with both a clutch 4th-down conversion caught by running back Daijun Edwards and a touchdown pass to tight end Josh Hadley. Ryan Fitzgerald kicked the PAT that broke a 16-16 tie because North Gwinnett’s kicker missed a PAT prior to this series.

North Gwinnett had less than a minute to make something happen, and when it got to midfield that’s when, as Propst put it, things fell apart with four penalties, one of which allowed the hosts to line up for a 38-yard field goal on an untimed down. Officials signaled it good.

Propst put this loss ahead of the playoff loss to Norcross on a sloppy field and another at Grayson.

“This was worse than those two,” he said. “This was a greater storyline. Young football team. Here we are about to achieve the unthinkable, to win five straight games on the road.

“I told my wife in the hotel the day of the game it feels funny. It felt like a first or second round playoff game. It didn’t have that championship feel. We had built up the Mercedes-Benz deal. I think it was a little bit of a downer for us because we had been up there the week before. It felt like I was running backwards in sand. It might have got to a quarterfinal feel, but it never felt like a championship game to me because of where it was.”

So it was really seven straight road trips playing six actual games to end the 2017 season. On the heels of missing out on playing in the new Mercedes-Benz Stadium due to weather concerns, Propst can only hope the GHSA will have a more thought-out contingency plan rather than regressing to old formats.

“No championship game should be played at a home site,” he said. “They had to move 1,000 (seats) in. No 7A championship game should be played in front of 5,800 people. That was my 11th one, and I have never been in a stadium that only had 6,000 people.

“You can’t blame the Moultrie people. Our loyal fans came; ones who didn’t come because of the financial burden it was on their families. I get it 100 percent.

“I feared what may happen (playing at North Gwinnett), and it happened. Now we, as a coaching staff, messed it up too. We are responsible for having too many men on the field, and we did it back-to-back coming out of a timeout. There’s no excuse for it.”

Not only is Propst heavily in favor of neutral sites for both semifinal and championship games, he said he would like to see instant replay used in these rounds, pointing to the controversial incompletion ruled when Peach County lost to Calhoun on Dec. 8 in the second of only two finals played at Mercedes-Benz. He said it probably wouldn’t work in the earlier playoff rounds unless technology changes – as it has to what’s available now – in the next five to 10 years.

On Thursday, Propst set up the first staff meeting for coaches since that fateful night in Suwanee, also amid the new additions at the high school with multiple coach’s offices and meeting rooms. Since the final, Propst had a family wedding where his son got married, school let out for Christmas break, and last weekend he accompanied JJ Peterson at the U.S. Army All-American Bowl in San Antonio. He then attended that Georgia-Alabama championship in Atlanta.

Since it was such a low number of seniors in 2017, 2018 looks to be loaded with talent and experience and very few positions with question marks.

“I don’t know if we’re loaded, but we’ve got a lot of experienced players back,” said Propst. “Each team has its own identity. This team won’t be like last year’s team. It’s based on how they approach the offseason, how they approach each phase. The state championship’s not going to be handed to Colquitt County.”

If the Packers do make another long playoff run this fall, it would put the cap on what is already a run of high school success that may be unmatched in Georgia’s highest classification. Since 2009, Colquitt is 32-7 in the playoffs alone reaching the quarterfinals all nine years, eight semifinals and four finals.

“Anything less than a state championship will be disappointing,” said Propst. “But I don’t think you can rest on the laurels of last year’s team. I’m going to steal a philosophy from the team that won it the other night. We’re not going to waste a failure. That last play was a failure. We lost on the last play against Tift. We lost in double overtime to Lowndes. In the state championship, we lost on an untimed down. I hope our football team understands we have to do a better job of finishing, be better disciplined, doing the little things better and tie that ribbon at the end of the package.

“It’s hard for me to be happy with our result knowing how it went down. I can’t get over how many penalties we had in the stretch run. We should have lost more games with the penalties. Four or five weeks in a row we had 11 penalties for 100 yards. Is that because of youth or lack of discipline? I think it’s both.”

Propst is looking at Jan. 22 to get the offseason program going, but things won’t get heavy until early February. The pace picks up, he said, after the next National Signing Day and in the weeks that follow.

The Packers will open with McEachern High at the Corky Kell Classic at Mercedes-Benz in mid-August. Other teams on the schedule, according to Propst, are Thomasville High, Valdosta High, at Warner Robins, at Grayson, Homecoming vs. Alcovy, the 1-7A home games against Camden County and Lowndes and at Tift County.

The scrimmages are, for the fall, at Coffee, and in the spring tentatively to be against Grayson at the Hawg Pen.

Peterson, at the All-American Bowl, committed to Tennessee and new head coach Jeremy Pruitt. Propst said he’s encouraging the linebacker to take his visits, which will include Knoxville this weekend. Next weekend’s it’s Alabama, and possibly Georgia the following weekend, Propst said.

“I think Cam Singletary is a lock for somebody,” said Propst about his leading receiver. “If you watch tape and think Cam can’t play college football, you’re crazy. He is such an elite athlete. I know he’s small, and the same issues he’s got in football he has in basketball. I think somebody will wake up in the next few weeks and come forward.”

In all, Propst feels no more than eight Packer seniors will sign scholarship offers. He said there’s probably nine Division I players on the 2018 roster led by Fitzgerald as a highly ranked kicker/punter.