MOULTRIE – Five-foot-six, 130 pounds.

That’s what Colquitt County coach Justin Rogers said was how big Xavier Williams, his strapping senior quarterback, was when he was a freshman.

Sensing skepticism, Rogers picked up his phone, scrolled through some photos and held it up.

There was a player, obviously a younger Williams, wearing a green Ola High No. 7 jersey, standing on the sideline of a football field.

But the height and weight appeared to be as Rogers had claimed. Only the cleated feet, large for the rest of his frame, showed the promise of the 6-foot-2, 205-pounder he would become as a senior.

Williams will be the less-heralded of the opposing quarterbacks in the Friday night’s matchup between No. 2 Lowndes and No. 3 Colquitt County on Tom White Field at Mack Tharpe Stadium.

The Vikings’ Jacurri Brown, although a year behind Williams, is a highly recruited player and a contender for Georgia’s Player of the Year honors.

A big, strong runner and a fine passer, Brown led Lowndes to the state championship game against Marietta last season as a sophomore. He has picked up where he left off this year and has the Vikings bringing a 6-0 record and wins in 20 of their last 21 games.

But, more quietly, Williams is writing his own success story.

As a junior at Ola High in McDonough last season, Williams was the backup to Berry College-bound Hunter Kautz and played sparingly. He threw just five passes, completing two for 48 yards and one touchdown.

During the summer, his father, who works for the National Football League’s flag football initiative, took a position in Moultrie and moved his family to Colquitt County.

The younger Williams immediately entered into a competition with sophomore Zane Touchton to earn the Packers starting quarterback position, held the last two seasons by Jaycee Harden, who threw 62 touchdown passes.

Just days before the start of the season, Rogers announced Williams as his starter, despite the youngster’s lack of preparation and familiarity with the Colquitt County system.

Two games into the season – victories over Banneker and Valdosta – Williams had received a scholarship offer from UNC-Charlotte.

After phone conversations with the team’s football staff, he accepted the offer, decided to graduate early and will enroll at Charlotte in January to begin his college football career.

“And he’s still just a puppy,” Rogers said.

Williams has completed 62-of-99 passes for 985 yards and 12 touchdowns, despite just becoming familiar with the Packers offense six months ago.

He has used the size that Rogers’s photo did not anticipate to become a fearless and fearsome runner. He leads the Packers in rushing, averaging 8.5 yards a carry, and laid Camden County to rest last Friday with touchdown runs of 59 and 71 yards.

“He’s just come out of nowhere,” Rogers said. “It’s hard to get recruited your senior year. He had no film.

“But his athletic ability is what makes him. There are not many who can throw and run like he can.”

That’s not to say that Williams is a finished or polished product, however.

The lack of summer work and the quarantines that have shut the program down several times have slowed his development to some degree.

“Oh, he’s still a work in progress,” Rogers said, crediting quarterbacks coach Joe Thornton with much of the young athlete’s development. “His footwork and mechanics still cause some issues.”

But an outstanding student, Williams has been able to quickly grasp some of the more intricate aspects of playing quarterback in Colquitt County’s system, Rogers said.

“You want your quarterback to be extremely smart in the system,” Rogers said, adding that some of the verbiage and terminology were new to Williams.

“We put a lot on our quarterback. And there are some things he’s never done before.”

The Packers offense under Rogers relies heavily on what is known as RPO, or the run-pass option.

“If we snap the ball 60 times, we’ve probably got 50 passes out there,” Rogers explained. “We aren’t going to throw it 50 times. But there are 50 opportunities.

“So we are looking for opportunities to take advantage of.”

Those RPO decisions are made by the quarterback.

“In the last couple of games, you can see him being more aggressive throwing the ball,” Rogers said. “He’s learning to take advantage of misaligned defenses.

“But he’s still learning how to play. He’s still learning those nuances. But you are starting to see that growth.”