Practice for 2025 football
season opens Monday

Published 5:27 pm Saturday, July 26, 2025

MOULTRIE – With the Georgia High School Football Association-mandated five days “acclamation” behind it, the Colquitt County football team will be in full pads on Monday to get ready for the 2025 season.
The acclimation process was put into effect to help athletes adjust to practicing in hot and humid conditions.
The Packers also used the time to get some weight room and film work in.
“It was very beneficial,” Packers coach Sean Calhoun said after Friday morning’s final session. “We really did get some good done.
“Now everyone’s excited to get the pads on. We’ve had a good summer and now the kids are looking forward to hitting each other. Everything we do now gets us closer to Bainbridge.”

Colquitt will practice at 2:30 p.m. on Monday; will be off  Tuesday; will hit the field at 4:30 p.m. on Wednesday; will practice 12:30 p.m. Thursday before Open House; and get up early for an 8 a.m. session on Friday.
The Packers will travel to Bainbridge on Thursday, August 7, for a 7 p.m. scrimmage with the Bearcats at Centennial Stadium.
Bainbridge went 1-9 last season, its first under former Tift County head coach Jay Walls.
But the Bearcats had gone a combined 37-15 the previous four seasons, winning a region championship each year.
The Packers defeated the Bearcats in the two teams’ 2024 scrimmage on Tom White Field at Mack Tharpe Stadium.
The two programs had not met since the Bearcats defeated the Packers 23-22 in the 2007 regular season in Bainbridge.
After the scrimmage, the Packers will have just over a week to get ready for the August 15 season-opener against Savannah’s Benedictine Military School in the Hawg Pen.
“Everything we do from now on matters,” Calhoun said. “We have got to come out of the gates fast. The start of our schedule is brutal.”
After Benedictine, which is expected to be ranked in Class AAAA, the Packers will play host to Monroe on Aug. 22.
Colquitt then will have to go to Suwanee to play North Gwinnett, which was 12-1 last year.
A week later, it will be off to Leesburg to meet Lee County, which reached the Class 5A semifinals before finishing 13-1 last season.
“We talk about that all the time,” Calhoun said. “If we want to get to where we want to be, we’ve got to be able to win on the road.”
Calhoun said the Packers are likely to include special teams play in the scrimmage in Bainbridge.
“We need to,” said Calhoun, whose team will go into the 2025 season without record-setting kicker Brett Fitzgerald.
Snapper Chason Glenn and holder Logan Morris also graduated.
Senior Josh Scoggins, who has not played before, and freshman Stewart Grant are battling for the starting position.
The two have already been the beneficiaries of recently hired kicking coach Anthony Pistelli, a two-time All-American who earned an NFL tryout after his collegiate career.
“He’s doing a fantastic job,” Calhoun said of the Thomasville High graduate. “He is already making an impact.”
The Packers also will unveil a new 3-5 defense when they meet the Bearcats.
“The players are adapting well to it,” Calhoun said of the new format installed by new defensive coordinator Stan Luttrell.“We know our kids can run and we know they are physical.
“We don’t want them to over-think. We just want them to play fast and play physical.”
PACKERS NOTES: Former Packer Kishaun Palmore, now playing on the offensive line at Savannah State, has been named to the Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Conference’s preseason all-conference team.
The 6-foot, 270-pounder will be a junior offensive lineman for the Tigers this season.
The Packer Touchdown Club’s annual Meet The Packers dinner will be held at 6 p.m. Tuesday, Aug. 5, at the high school cafeteria.