There’s almost a month remaining in the regular season, but several games this weekend will determine the early favorites to win region titles. Among those games are Trinity Christian at Whitewater, North Cobb at Walton, Fitzgerald at Worth County, East Coweta at Carrollton, Cedartown at Heritage of Ringgold and Burke County at Benedictine.

One of the better storylines of the 2022 season has been the high number of first-year coaches who have made an immediate impact on their new teams. Of the 80 teams ranked this week, 18 are guided by first-year coaches, and 10 of those were unranked in preseason. Below are 15 outstanding first-year coaches. Each has guided an unbeaten team, one that’s entered the rankings this season or one that’s improved by more than 20 points from 2021 according to the computer Maxwell Ratings, or all three.

The high school football state championship games could return to Mercedes-Benz Stadium as early as next year, GHSA executive director Robin Hines told the association’s executive committee Monday. Hines declined to say more while talks are ongoing with Mercedes-Benz officials. The championship games have been held at Georgia State’s Center Parc Stadium the past three years.

Ware County is the third No. 1 football team in Class 5A this season, and Hebron Christian has its highest ranking in this week’s high school football rankings. Ware (4-0) moved up from No. 2 after No. 1 Cartersville lost to Calhoun last week. Hebron Christian, previously unranked, is No. 5 in Class 3A after a 35-28 victory over then-No. 5 Oconee County in a Region 8 game. Hebron had been ranked a few times before in Class A, but the Lions’ No. 5 standing this week is their best showing.

Carrollton freshman Julian Lewis has taken the lead in passing yards this season, while Temple’s Cam Vaughn and Rabun County’s Jaden Gibson continue to lead in rushing and receiving. Lewis passed for 283 yards and four touchdowns last week in a 56-28 victory over Hillgrove. That put him at 1,598 yards on the season. Carrollton is 6-0.

The threat of Hurricane Ian led to a major reshuffling of the schedule in Week 7, with the majority of games moving to Thursday. Among the biggest region matchups Thursday night are Blessed Trinity at Roswell, Calhoun at Cartersville, Eastside at Loganville and Houston County at Lee County.

More than 120 high school football games now have been moved up to Wednesday or Thursday this week to get ahead of Hurricane Ian, which is on track to hit western Florida on Wednesday.

Eddrick Houston of Buford and Tywan Royal of Norcross created chaos on defense, and Houston County's Antwann Hill, Northeast's Nick Woodford and Roswell's K.J. Smith put up big offensive numbers in victories last week. They were among the standouts in Week 6 of the season.

Lowndes and North Cobb reentered the Class 7A rankings this week, Lambert made it for the first time in 10 years and Grayson dropped eight spots to No. 10 after the sixth week of the high school football season. Lowndes defeated previous No. 2 Grayson 24-14 to make up for its road loss the previous week to East Coweta. Lowndes was the preseason No. 8 team and now sits at No. 9. North Cobb, the preseason No. 4, defeated previous No. 9 Milton 21-7 and got back in at No. 8. New to the rankings this week is Lambert, which defeated East Coweta 31-24 on Friday.

Georgia is almost certain to have its first 1,000-yard rusher tonight as Temple’s Cam Vaughn and Hebron Christian’s Gavin Hall are only 47 and 63 yards shy, respectively. Both are three-year starting quarterbacks. Vaughn, a senior, has rushed for 953 yards and 14 touchdowns on 106 carries (9.0 yards per carry) in five games. Hall, a junior, has rushed for 937 yards and 11 touchdowns on 75 carries (12.5 ypc).