MOULTRIE — Twenty-five years removed from Colquitt County’s first Georgia High School Association state football championship, the Packers coach then most remembers his team’s confidence.

“They were a confident group of athletes,” Jim Hughes said recently from his home in Thomasville. “But not to the point of arrogance.

“I’ve heard that confidence comes from demonstrated ability. Well, I think that group demonstrated their ability.”

The 1994 Packers won all 15 of their games, including two wins over longtime south Georgia rival Valdosta, recognized as one of the top high school programs in the nation.

The second of those victories came in the state championship game in front of an appreciative crowd at Mack Tharpe Stadium.

Many of those fans had been in the stands three years earlier when the Packers lost the state championship to LaGrange 17-16 on a field goal with 13 seconds remaining.

Hughes said the run to the state championship game in 1991 built the momentum for the 1994 state title.

“I’ve always said, if we don’t have 1991, we don’t have 1994,” Hughes said.

Colquitt lost in the first round of the state playoffs in 1993, but the players vowed not to fall short the following season. In winning their first eight games, they did not allow an opponnent to score more than seven points in a game.

One of the closest calls of the season came against Bainbridge when leading receiver Ronald Bonner, who was not dressed for the game because he was injured, suited up in the second half and caught a touchdown pass from Clif Henry in the waning seconds to give the Packers a 7-3 victory.

“(Bainbridge coach) Sonny Smart told me after the game, ‘I knew he was going to come in,’” Hughes said. “I told him there was no way he could have known because I didn’t know until the second half.

“But even if he hadn’t come in, I like to think we’d found some other way to come out on top.”

The Packers traditionally had strong defenses during the 17 season Hughes was at the helm. The word — certainly somewhat exaggerated — was that Hughes took the best 11 athletes for the defense and the offense got what was left.

Hughes also coached the 1973 Thomasville team to the state championship in a season in which the Bulldogs shut out nine opponents and gave up just 55 points in 13 games.

The 1994 Packers had just three shutouts, but allowed just 101 points in 15 games.

That defense was led by linebacker Jesse Sutton (‘His locker room presence was as good an anyone we coached,” Hughes said.) and defensive back Dextra Polite (“He was a great leader for us. And he had a great motor. Still does.”).

On offense, the Packers got great mileage of 145-pound running back Lavasky King.

“I don’t know that anyone’s won a state championship with a smaller runner,” Hughes said.

The two wins over Valdosta and its head coach Nick Hyder, one of Hughes’s closest friends in the coaching fraternity, were particularly memorable.

The Packers fell behind 7-0 four plays into the regular-season meeting when Valdosta’s Johnny Jones returned a punt 63 yards for a touchdown.

But the Wildcats did not score again and the Packers won 10-7 on a 2-yard touchdown run by King and a 38-yard field goal by Neal Clements.

Valdosta reached the state championship game with its only loss coming at the hands of the Packers. But Colquitt never trailed, got two interceptions and a fumble recovery by safety Chris Davis and won the title game 23-10. Valdosta’s lone touchdown came late in the final quarter.

But what Hughes remembers most about the game was how disciplined both teams were. Valdosta was penalized twice for 10 yards; Colquitt, twice for seven yards.

Before the season, Hughes hired Kevin Giddens to be the Packers offensive line coach and his group did an outstanding job.

Giddens went on to be the head coach at Coffee, the region representative to the Georgia High School Association and now works for the GHSA.

“I don’t know that I ever coached with anyone with better people skills than Kevin,” Hughes said.

The rest of the staff also included well-regarded assistants: Darrell Funderburk, John Redmond and James Stancil on the offensive side of the ball and Mike Singletary, Jimmy Francis, Tony Kirkland and Scott Rider handling the defense.

“We had a great staff,” Hughes said.

Hughes coached the Packers from 1983-1999 and won 140 games. His final five teams won 49 games and reached the semifinals twice. It would be 20 years before Colquitt won another state title.

“You have to realize how hard it is to win a state championship playing in the highest classification,” he said.

The state championship season was not without its heartbreak. Before the 1993 season, the team lost an outstanding defensive lineman when Darby Dalton died in a car wreck. Then, just three weeks after the 1994 state championship game, King also was killed in a car wreck coming back to Moultrie from a Colquitt County basketball game.

“The loss of those two kids served as bookends for that group of seniors,” Hughes said.

“I thought we were even-keeled and well-prepared,” Hughes said. “And there was not a whole lot of drama with that group of athletes.

“That was a group that Moultrie should hold in the highest esteem.”