The Georgia Prep Football regular season is history, and now after a long and grueling marathon, it’s time for the second season, or the five week sprint to the finish line.  Today there are 192 teams preparing for a title run and there are only 14 trophies awaiting those teams. The next few weeks will see championship runs by some teams, upsets by others and when the dust clears in the Georgia Dome on December 11th and 12th, only seven teams will claim the top prize.

As a prelude to this week’s round one playoffs, there were some top games played last weekend all across the state and several teams played their way into the second season while others could not overcome losses suffered earlier in this 2015 season. Tift County lost to Lowndes, 42-16, and Lee County fell to Valdosta, 31-25, and those two quality teams from Region 1-AAAAAA will watch the playoffs from a distance.

Effingham County rolled past Statesboro, 23-3, to finish the regular season at 7-3, but lost the tie-breaker for the fourth playoff spot in Region 3-AAAAA by virtue of a 17-14 loss to County rival South Effingham, earlier in the regular season. Now, the Mustangs’ season continues with a first round battle against top-seeded Houston County from Region 2-AAAAA this weekend in Warner Robins.

The first round of the Prep playoffs feature some classic matchups in each of the six classifications and one can now put to rest the thought that a top-seeded team will eliminate a four-seed in round one and move on to round two, or that a two-seed will automatically make easy work of a three-seed.  

All of the games this weekend have a lot at stake, for its win and continue to play, or lose and look forward to another shot at the title in 2016.

In Class AA this week there are a couple of games that look like classic matchups. Putnam County, a three-seed from Region 4-AA travels to Fitzgerald to meet the Purple Hurricanes, a second seed from the always tough Region 1-AA. Early County, with losses to Bainbridge, Brooks County and Fitzgerald but the winners of five in a row travel to Lamar County in another key Class AA battle.

In Class AAA, there are some interesting matchups. Hart County travels to Callaway, Pierce County travels to Cedar Grove, Westminster travels to Brooklet to meet Southeast Bulloch, a team who is in the statewide playoffs for the first time since 1974, and Elbert County is at Central-Carrollton in a battle of AAA powerhouses.

Class AAAA feature games include upstart Spalding and Cairo, and Burke County at West Laurens in Dexter. In Class AAAAA, Warner Robins is at Coffee, Jones County travels to Glynn Academy and Ware County takes on former number-one ranked, Northside-Warner Robins in McConnell-Talbert Stadium on Friday night.

Class AAAAAA top games finds Collins Hill at Lambert, West Forsyth at Peachtree Ridge and Lovejoy at Newnan.

Class A Public and Class A Private divisions begin play on November 20th.

Let the playoff games begin!