Benedictine and North Oconee, the top two teams in the Class 4A rankings since the beginning of the season, will face off Friday night as the GHSA playoffs hit the quarterfinal round. Class 5A will move on without defending champion Ware County, which lost to Warner Robins on a last-second field goal in the second round.

Rome, Warner Robins and Toombs County eliminated defending state champions in the second round of the playoffs last week while Lumpkin County and Bryan County reached the quarterfinals for the first time in their histories. Douglas County and Cass also broke long quarterfinal droughts while Jenkins, despite its 3-7 regular season, kept its unlikely run going with another one-point victory as a No. 4 seed.

Defending champions will be on hot seats tonight when the football playoffs resume with 64 second-round games. Reigning Class 6A champion Hughes plays at No. 6 Rome. Both are 10-1. Each has an outstanding senior quarterback. Hughes’ Air Noland surpassed 10,000 passing yards for his career last week. Rome’s Reece Fountain has thrown for more than 8,500 yards.

Three games between ranked teams headline the second week of the postseason in classes 7A and 6A. No. 8 Westlake travels to No. 3 in Class 7A, while the Class 6A games include No. 9 Houston County at No. 10 Woodward Academy and No. 4 Hughes at No. 6 Rome. Collins Hill and Camden County will try to keep the momentum going after upsets last week.

The past two champions of Class 5A will face off in the second round of the playoffs when Ware County travels to Warner Robins. The teams have played each other each of the past four seasons, with each team winning twice. Two-time defending state champion Benedictine will host LaGrange in a Class 4A game.

Football teams placed higher on the playoff bracket will play at home when same-seeded opponents meet in the quarterfinals next week, the Georgia High School Association determined Monday with a universal coin toss.

Unranked Collins Hill, Camden County, Cass, Dalton and Monroe Area defeated top-10 teams, reigning champion Sandy Creek lost, and Bryan County and Lumpkin County won their first playoff games in history in the first round of the GHSA playoffs. Cass, Jenkins, Gilmer and Lovejoy beat No. 1 seeds, and Savannah Christian won in four overtimes, the last one with controversy.

The Georgia High School Association placed its 457 member schools into regions for the 2024-26 academic years Thursday, pushing reclassification one big step closer to completion. The GHSA approved the appeals of six schools to move out of Class 6A, which will be the highest classification, and into Class 5A. Winning those appeals were Arabia Mountain, Houston County, Kennesaw Mountain, New Manchester, Newnan and Shiloh.

Prince Avenue Christian’s Aaron Philo retook the lead in GHSA passing yards with a 388-yard game last week against Oglethorpe County. Philo has thrown for 2,568 yards in eight games. Wayne County’s Matthew Fuller and Loganville’s Ahmed Souare continue to lead the GHSA in rushing and receiving, respectively. Each has only one regular-season game remaining.

Parkview visits Colquitt County for a Class 7A game Friday night in what is perhaps the marquee matchup of the first round, a north-south Georgia battle between an undefeated blue blood and a Gwinnett County team that played for a region title last week. The question is whether Parkview has fuel in the tank after losing to Grayson 41-14.

Arabia Mountain's Daniel Turpin, Bainbridge's Cam Sanders, Stephenson's Devin Ingram and Trion's Toby Maddux produced big numbers in their teams' championship-clinching victories in the final weekend of the regular season, and Marcus Calwise helped Newton break a two-game losing streak and grab the No. 2 seed in Region 4-7A.

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.

The playoffs kick off this week as 255 GHSA teams, 36 GIAA teams and six GAPPS teams begin the road to the championships. Champions will be crowned by the GAPPS on Nov. 24, by the GIAA on Nov. 30 and Dec. 1 at Mercer's Five Star Stadium, and by the GHSA Dec. 11-13 at Mercedes-Benz Stadium.

Each week this season, scores compiled from online scoreboards and social media will be posted on the Scores & Schedules page late Friday night. GHSF Daily will begin reconciling and verifying the scores Saturday morning. Here is the updated version from Week 12. If you have additional corrections, please contact us.

Prince Avenue Christian’s Aaron Philo retook the lead in GHSA passing yards with a 388-yard game last week against Oglethorpe County. Philo has thrown for 2,568 yards in eight games. Wayne County’s Matthew Fuller and Loganville’s Ahmed Souare continue to lead the GHSA in rushing and receiving, respectively. Each has only one regular-season game remaining.

City and private schools took a hit in reclassification two years ago with a new 3.0 multiplier. They are probably smiling today. The Georgia High School Association on Wednesday placed its 457 member schools into classifications for the 2024-25 and 2025-26 academic years, and some larger county public schools got the worst of it. Nineteen schools are moving into the highest classification. All are county schools.

As the final week of the regular season approaches, here are 10 storylines to follow, most with an eye toward history and the unusual. Eleven games will decide region titles outright. Two of them, each to be played near the Florida-Georgia border, match top-10 teams. They are No. 1 Coffee at No. 5 Ware County in Region 1-5A and No. 8 Cairo at No. 3 Bainbridge in Region 1-4A.

Big nights on offense by Adairsville WR Tre Winters, Providence Christian WR Caleb Lee and Southwest QB Chase Dupree helped their teams pick up crucial victories in the race for the playoffs, while Kel Ikpechukwu led the Grayson defense in a dominant win over Archer that created a tie for first place in Region 4-7A.

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.