Four defending champions and three teams that have never won state titles will enter the playoffs with No. 1 rankings. The defending champions are Mill Creek in Class 7A, Benedictine in 4A, Thomson in 2A and Prince Avenue Christian in A Division I. Coffee in 5A, Calvary Day in 3A and Schley County in A Division II are No. 1. They have never won state titles. Gainesville, in 6A, is the final No. 1 team.

Fourteen top-10 teams lost football games last week, and six fell out of the rankings. Most conspicuously absent is Calhoun, the previous No. 10 team in Class 5A. The Yellow Jackets lost to unranked Cass 52-29. Calhoun is out of the rankings for the first time since early 2020 and won’t be in the playoffs for the first time since 1999. They finished 6-4 overall and 2-3 in Region 7-5A, which includes top-10 teams Cartersville and Hiram.

A week after getting bounced from the Class 7A rankings for losing to an unranked team, Parkview re-entered the top 10 this week with a big victory its own Friday night. Parkview defeated No. 5 Newton 28-21, complicating the Region 4 standings and showing how competitive the state’s highest classification can be. Parkview, now ranked No. 9, has lost to Archer, the first-place team in Region 4, and to No. 1 Mill Creek.

Defending Class 7A champion Mill Creek is No. 1 for the first time this season after beating previous No. 1 Buford 31-24 Friday. Mill Creek has been ranked No. 1 once previously. That was after winning the 7A state championship last year. The Hawks’ only 2022 loss came against Buford, which started No. 1 this season because of its wealth of high-end talent that includes five-star quarterback Dylan Raiola, who is committed to Georgia.

Calvary Day, a GHSA member since 1988, is No. 1 in football for the first time. The Cavaliers (7-0) of Savannah are on top of the Class 3A rankings this week after previous No. 1 Cedar Grove lost for the fifth time Friday. The latest came against Carver of Montgomery, Ala., 13-9. Cedar Grove’s previous losses had been to top-10 opponents from the highest classification, one in Florida. Carver is 4-2 but unranked in Alabama’s Class 6A.

Coffee’s football team is No. 1 for the first time, and Calvary Day made a bid to do the same but remained No. 2 in the AJC rankings this week despite No. 1 Cedar Grove losing for the fourth time.. Coffee is on top of the Class 5A rankings after previous No. 1, Ware County, the defending champion, lost to Class 4A’s No. 4 team, Bainbridge, 35-21 last week.

Boosted by a victory over No. 7 Westlake, Newton moved into the Class 7A rankings this week, taking Westlake’s previous spot, while Lumpkin County and Lanier County each are ranked for the first time in more than 50 years. Newton won 27-12 against what the computer Maxwell Rankings pegged as 18-point favorite. The Rams are 5-0 for the first time since 1950.

Benedictine beat Ware County in a game between No. 1-ranked reigning champions last week. Both are still No. 1 in this week’s football rankings. Benedictine naturally kept its top spot in Class 4A after beating Ware 31-24 in Savannah. The Cadets are 4-0 after starting 2-2 each of the past two seasons, each ending in state titles. Ware’s 17-game winning streak is over, but its reign at No. 1 in Class 5A is not.

Gainesville and Thomson moved up to No. 1 in their classifications in the football rankings after three weeks of the regular season after previous No. 1 teams Hughes and Fitzgerald lost. Hughes was beaten by Butler, a Charlotte-area school, 30-27 on Saturday night at Atlanta’s Lakewood Stadium. Hughes, the defending Class 6A champion, had won 17 straight games.

Cedar Grove remained the No. 1 Class 3A football team in the AJC rankings despite losing to a Florida team Saturday night. The Saints were beaten 50-42 by Monarch, which plays in a Florida classification for its largest schools. No. 2 is Calvary Day, which has never been ranked No. 1 and lost to Cedar Grove 30-0 last season.

Schley County is the new No. 1 team in Class A Division II while Eagle’s Landing Christian and Oconee County are out of the rankings for the first time in years. Buford and Hughes, the No. 1 teams in the two highest classifications, had two of the biggest wins on the opening weekend and solidified their positions.