Bull Barge, a veteran of Colquitt County's 2014 undefeated state championship team, is back to coach the Packers linebackers.

MOULTRIE – Bull Barge probably already has October 28 circled on his calendar.

Not only will the former Colquitt County linebacker, who is in his first season as an assistant coach at his alma mater, turn 26 years old that day, the Packers will play at Valdosta in a Region 1-7A game that evening.

Valdosta, of course, was one of the Packers’ fiercest rivals during Barge’s time as one of Colquitt County’s most successful and popular players.

It also is where Barge started his coaching career in 2020.

So a victory that night at Bazemore-Hyder Stadium at Cleveland Field would make the birthday party that much more festive.

Barge is quick to point out that although his first coaching job did come with his hiring by Colquitt County’s biggest rival, his ambition has also been to return home.

“I just had to get my start there,” he said.

And now, after coaching at Thomasville last year, here he is.

“Oh, it feels good,” Barge said recently when asked about the opportunity to coach in Moultrie, where he grew up and helped lead the Packers to an undefeated season and a state championship in 2014.

Flashing that familiar smile, Barge added, “The last two years have been too long. It was time to get home.”

When he was interviewed for the job, Barge said he was asked what he thought he could bring to the program.

“I told them, ‘pride,’” he said. “Pride from a player standpoint and pride from a community standpoint.

“When we were Packers, we carried ourselves that way in school and in the community. That made me even more hungry to come home and be a Packer.”

As Sean Calhoun built his first coaching staff after taking over the Colquitt County program earlier this year, he added four former Packers: Barge, who will coach the linebackers; Bryce Giddens, the offensive line; Kiel Pollard, the tight ends; and Quin Roberson, the inside receivers.

Giddens and Roberson were playing college football by the time Calhoun joined the Colquitt County staff as an offensive assistant in 2014, just in time to help lead the Packers to 30 consecutive wins and two state championships.

Calhoun was able to watch Barge and Pollard develop as athletes and young men in person in his first tour in Moultrie and wasted no time making sure they would be given an opportunity to pass on their knowledge to a new group of Packers.

Barge is still Colquitt County’s all-time leading tackler, after being credited with 507 stops from 2011-2014.

And while his relative lack of height — he smiles and makes sure everyone knows he is 5-foot-8 and a half — might have made Power 5 football programs leery, South Alabama gave him an opportunity to play there and did not regret it.

He is still ranked No. 5 in Jaguars history in total tackles with 246; No. 2 in assisted tackles; and No. 9 in solo tackles.

In 2018, Street and Smith’s Football magazine named him as the hardest hitter in the Sun Belt Conference.

That same year, Barge was named to the All-Sun Belt Conference second team and earned South Alabama’s Jim Yance Heart of a Jaguar Award.

Barge was away from football in 2019, but yearned to get back in and contacted Rush Propst, his Colquitt County coach, who had been named the head coach at Valdosta.

“I told him I was looking for a job,” Barge said. “He told me I needed to get into coaching because I’d do a good job.

“Two weeks later, I was in the school board office in Valdosta.”

Barge worked with the Valdosta safeties in 2020 and also helped with the team’s film crew.

That December, the Wildcats went to Carrollton for a Class 6A state quarterfinal game.

Before the game, the Valdosta film crew ran into some technological problems and the Carrollton head coach — Sean Calhoun — came to the rescue.

“(Calhoun) said he did it because he loved me,” Barge remembers. “I said to myself, ‘I could work for a man like that.’”

After the 2020 season, Propst was forced to leave as the Valdosta coach and Barge looked for another job.

And another former Packer was eager to have him on board.

Former Colquitt County assistant Zach Grage, the head coach at Thomasville, hired Barge to coach the Bulldogs’ cornerbacks.

“He taught me to be a good position coach,” Barge said of Grage, who worked closely with the young former Packer. “He really prepared me. He made me believe, ‘I can do this for the rest of my life.’”

And Barge was on the sidelines as Thomasville advanced to the Class AA state championship game, going 13-2.

It was the first time Thomasville had reached the state championship game in 28 years.

“For us to go that far, it was really amazing,” Barge said.

After the 2021 season, Barge considered becoming a college graduate assistant, but was ecstatic to have a chance to join Calhoun’s staff.

When Grage was named head coach at Lowndes recently, he, too, reached out to Barge.

But Barge was headed home.

After accepting the job to coach the Packers inside linebackers, Barge was committed to work at Thomasville through the end of the school year.

So he would leave Thomasville after school and drive to Moultrie for the Packers spring practice sessions.

“Every day I would leave there thinking, ‘I’m going to Moultrie to be a Packer,’” Barge said. “I was so happy to be back.”

The inside linebacking corps is being rebuilt, but Barge likes what he sees so far.

The two inside starters in the scrimmage at Cairo were Kamal Bonner and Jerron Blakely.

Barge calls Bonner, a rising senior who played safety last year, “highly talented.”

And of Blakely, a rising junior, Barge said, “He can be special.”

Barge said rising freshman Chance Sims has a chance to see some Friday night playing time as well.

Two more linebackers who were not available for spring practices could offer some depth when they join the team over the summer.

Barge is clearly looking forward to what he and the other former Packers can bring to the 2022 team.

“This is the perfect time and the perfect choice for guys to come back and show a younger generation how things should be done,” he said. “I see us putting our footprint on the program.”