The Eagles got what they wanted with a 56-35 win for the Class 5A state championship. They earned a victory that ended their season at 15-0 and secured them a spot among the all-time state champions. The Panthers (13-2) went home with something less grandiose but perhaps just as meaningful as their runner-up.

“Absolutely,” Hughes quarterback Christian Langford said with tears in his eyes, asking him if he thought Milton realized how much his team was giving the Eagles a run for their money. “They definitely got that message.”

Thanks to a slow offensive start, a missed fake punt and costly mishaps in pass coverage, Hughes fell behind 21-7 in the first quarter. But in a hectic second quarter, the Panthers managed to tie the game at 21, then 28, then 35. The two teams scored touchdowns on 10 of 11 consecutive possessions in a manic back-and-forth of their playmaking talent.

The Panthers may not have been the most talented team Milton faced this season, but they may have been the most relentless.

“This team doesn’t have a lot of firepower when you look at what the 2022 (state champion) team had,” Williams said at school Monday afternoon, a day before the finale. “But the buddy on this team is going through the roof. Listen, the buddy on this team is crazy.”

When Maurice Gleaton crossed the goal line with a 65-yard touchdown reception from Langford with 50 seconds left in the first half to increase the score to 35, the Panthers became the first team to break the 30-point threshold this season Milton exceeded. The Eagles certainly knew the Panthers wanted to chase them all night, even to the Ga. 400 if necessary.

“A blow-by-blow game, and I knew it was going to be that way because they were so explosive, so fast and so physical,” said Reaves, the Milton coach. “They were a team that wanted to challenge us and they came out and did it.”

But Milton was not discouraged. With the score tied at 35 after Gleaton’s score, Luke Nickel, Milton’s Miami-bound quarterback, led a textbook two-minute drive. He took off with 42 seconds left and took the Eagles 63 yards in four plays with only one timeout available. He finished it off with an absurdly precise hit in the end zone to wide receiver and Georgia freshman CJ Wiley to escape coverage and score the team’s sixth touchdown of the half in seven possessions for a 42-35 lead to achieve.

“Their offense can score quickly, very quickly, and they are efficient,” said Hughes receiver/safety Jabari Jones, a Jackson State signee.

Nickel led another touchdown drive to start the second half and Hughes couldn’t respond. The Eagles added another touchdown in the fourth quarter to take their final lead.

“A well-oiled machine,” Williams said of the Eagles. “You can’t make mistakes against them. They make you pay for your mistakes and that’s what they did for us tonight.”

Without a few mistakes, Hughes could have made it closer. But the game was a tribute to both programs, two of the best in the state. Milton won back-to-back state titles for the first time in school history after winning the Class 7A championship last year. Nickel was virtually perfect, completing 21 of 22 passes for 413 yards and four touchdowns with no interceptions.

“It’s so cool,” Nickel said of completing the back-to-back trip. “Just something that’s always been on my mind. I always wanted to be the quarterback here and do something special.”

“I’m just grateful that our guys stuck to the game plan for four quarters and continued to trust us as coaches and just left everything on the field,” Reaves said.

Hughes excelled in displacing a team ranked second in the country in three polls.

“It hurt at the end of the game,” said Langford, Hughes’ quarterback. “We went out there, we gave it our all.”