Top stories to follow as 2024 season kicks off
The Georgia high school football season begins today with Douglass vs. LaGrange and Kell vs. North Atlanta in the Corky Kell + Dave Hunter Classic. Those are the first two of 190 games in the season’s opening week.
From a preseason vantage, here are the five most intriguing storylines to the 2024 season.
*Monster Milton: The 2023 Class 7A champion, Milton, returns 18 of 22 starters and a pair of Super 11 players, Luke Nickel and C.J. Wiley, who are two of the 2024 team’s nine major Division I commits. Two big-time recruits – tight end Ethan Barbour (Georgia) and tackle Brayden Jacobs (Clemson) – have transferred in. The Eagles are top 10 in virtually every national ranking and could be one of the state’s all-time great teams. They’re playing in 5A this season and open Friday night at home against Buford, the No. 1 team in Class 6A.
*Ju Ju’s last ride: Carrollton quarterback Julian “Ju Ju” Lewis is the state’s most widely known player. The five-star prospect reclassified after his sophomore season and is a senior, almost ready to join Southern Cal. He’s on pace to set a state record for career touchdown passes in the highest classification, but he’d prefer getting Carrollton’s first state title since 1998. Lewis is surrounded by five other four- or five-star recruits. Those include defensive backs Zelus Hicks and Dorian Barney, top-75 national junior prospects who moved in from Gwinnett County. Carrollton is ranked No. 2 in 6A behind Buford and opens Friday night in an ESPN-televised road game against 2023 Class 6A runner-up Woodward Academy.
*Big fish, small ponds: Seven of Georgia’s consensus top 22 senior prospects play in Class A in schools with 500 or fewer students. That’s unprecedented. The seven are Savannah Christian’s Elijah Griffin (ranked No. 1 in Georgia), Manchester’s Justus Terry (No. 2), Schley County’s Zayden Walker (No. 5), Dodge County’s Darrell Johnson (No. 6), Fellowship Christian’s Josh Petty (No. 7), Toombs County’s Lagonza Hayward (No. 12) and Greene County’s Kevin Wynn (No. 22). All except Wynn are ranked among 247Sports Composite’s best 100 seniors in the country. For perspective, California has seven players total in the top 100. Georgia has six in Class A alone. Only Texas, Florida, California and Georgia have more than Georgia’s Class A.
*Kinder, gentler 3.0: The GHSA in 2022 adopted a multiplier to count out-of-zone students three times in classifying teams, and it served to move several high-performing private and city schools into higher classes and curbed their success. In this year’s reclassification, the GHSA exempted students in feeder schools since the fifth grade from the multiplier. Jefferson, the No. 1 team in Class 3A, was a beneficiary, as was Marist, the No. 2 team in 4A. They dropped two classes after making the semifinals last year. They play each other Friday in Jefferson. Other two-class droppers worth watching are Blessed Trinity, Burke County, Calhoun, St. Pius and Thomasville, not to mention Milton again.
*New structure: The GHSA has seven classifications this year instead of eight. Class 7A is gone, and Class 6A is the highest. The 25 private schools playing region schedules in classes 3A to A will play among public schools in the regular season, then enter an independent state playoff. So while it’s one fewer class, it’s still eight championships. The GHSA will seed playoff teams in Classes 3A through A Division I, plus the 3A-A private division, with its new Post Season Ranking Formula (PSRF). While the private schools don’t like having their own playoff – they’d rather play with public schools throughout – it makes for a great league, bringing together two-time Class A Division I champion Prince Avenue Christian, Class 3A runner-up Savannah Christian and Class 3A semifinalist Calvary Day, along with emerging threats Hebron Christian, Fellowship Christian and Trinity Christian, plus bigger private schools Greater Atlanta Christian and Lovett.