TIFTON — Region 1-AAAAA has long been considered one of the toughest football regions in the state, and maybe the country. The region’s coaches certainly feel that way.

All seven Region 1 head coaches showed respect for their fellow region teams, and said they expect it to be very competitive again this year, at the region’s Media Day Saturday at the University of Georgia’s Tifton Campus.

“This is the toughest region in the country,” Colquitt County head coach Tim Cokely said.

“These are some of the best coaches and teams in the state,” Coffee head coach Jerry Odom said. “You can’t outcoach people in this region.... Any team that makes the playoffs from this region has a chance to get hot and win state.”

“It was a lot of fun to coach in this region last year, because of how good every team was,” Warner Robins head coach Bryan Way said. “When you get into region play, you play tough teams week in and week out. It’s like a playoff atmosphere every week.”

Last season, six of the seven Region 1 teams had winning records. The average margin of victory in region play was just 7.6 points, and two games went to three overtimes. Cokely pointed out that those two triple-overtime games, which Colquitt lost to Tift County and Coffee, were the difference between his team being 2-4 and 4-2 and making the playoffs.

The coaches who made the playoffs last year said they found the competition in 1-AAAAA as tough or tougher than the teams they saw in the playoffs.

“Last year, we beat Mundy’s Mill in the first round of the playoffs, then we went to Camden, which was ranked second in the state, and beat them (27-7). The next week, we beat Norcross (14-3), which was No. 1 in the state and was supposedly ranked 15th in the country,” Way said. “They wouldn’t have been ranked that high if they had to play in this region. Those teams were good, but they weren’t any better than the six teams in our region.”

That respect for last year’s region teams extended to Valdosta, despite the fact the Wildcats won only one game.

“We played Newnan and M.L. King the first two rounds of the playoffs. I’ll play those teams any day before I’ll play Valdosta,” Houston County coach George Collins said. “When we left Valdosta last year, our players wanted nothing more to do with them. They were a tough team.”

Most of the coaches neglected to make predictions about how the region would turn out in 2007, knowing how competitive the games would be. The one coach who did, Tift County’s Jay Walls, said Coffee looked the best to him.

“Coffee’s going to be tough. They were real good last year, and they’ve got a lot of players back this year,” Walls said. “Lowndes will be tough, as well. I think Valdosta will be one of the best teams, and the rest of us will be good, too.”

Coffee returns arguably its best offensive and defensive players, running back Melvin Loving and defensive end C.J. Mizell. But the Trojans will have to replace two All-Region linebackers and the entire secondary, each of whom signed college scholarships.

“We’ve got a good nucleus coming back,” Odom said. “On offense, we’ve got seven starters back, and seven other guys who played a lot last year. On defense, we have to replace a very good secondary and two good linebackers. Losing our kicker and punter, Will Goggans, is going to hurt. This team’s got a chance to be pretty good.

“We open with Madison County, which is supposed to be one of the best teams in Florida, so we’ll find out how good we are real quick. Then we’ve got Clinch County the next week.”