Poll Talk: Lowndes, SWD, Carver, Buford, Wesleyan are No. 1
Rankings don’t mean anything in high school football, but until toe meets leather for the first time this season Friday, it’s all we’ve got. So have at it with these.
Some think the defending champs should start No. 1, but I figure we’re ranking 2009, not 2008, so three state champs with heavy graduation losses — Camden County, Tucker and Cairo — won’t start in first place.
But I do think all three will be very good by the end of the season.
Lowndes (AAAAA) and Carver of Columbus (AAA) are safe choices, but I’m sure picking of Southwest DeKalb will cause some skepticism. But SWD was a Top 10 team last season that returns more marquee players than any other in AAAAA.
Todd Holcomb is co-publisher of Georgia High School Football Daily, a free email newsletter. To join the mailing list, go here.
Class AAAAA
Lowndes
Grayson
Peachtree Ridge
Camden County
Stephenson
North Gwinnett
Northside-Warner Robins
M.L. King
Etowah
Newnan
Class AAAA
Southwest DeKalb
Tucker
Rome
Marist
Sandy Creek
Griffin
Westside-Macon
Statesboro
Sequoyah
Loganville
Class AAA
Carver-Columbus
Gainesville
Flowery Branch
LaGrange
Cairo
Baldwin
Peach County
Carrollton
Washington County
Jackson
Class AA
Buford
Calhoun
Thomasville
Fitzgerald
Jefferson County
Pepperell
Lovett
Callaway
Brooks County
Jefferson
Class A
Wesleyan
Wilcox County
Clinch County
Lincoln County
Wilkinson County
Emanuel County Institute
Brookstone
Savannah Christian
Turner County
Bremen
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222 comments Add your comment
Yo
August 20th, 2009
4:55 pm
Prediction…this Saturday night Grayson will be the better team.
Camden is young.
Come playoff time Camden will be the better team.
Playoff time is money time. Camden will be ready by then.
down south fan
August 20th, 2009
5:09 pm
i think the quarterback change at lowndes is political,and they will really be tested ,in my view they are overrated ,peachtree ridge will be the test. stay tuned
HoyaDawg
August 20th, 2009
7:06 pm
Peachtree R will be a good test for Lowndes and Harrison. My pick PR over Harrison by 18. PR over Lowndes by 7. My Hope for Harrison is they get stronger by years end and make a run for the 4th spot in playoffs and who knows… Maybe pull off a Woodstock. I really think 4th will come between Woodstock, Northcobb, Harrison, And K. Mt. I agree Camden would NOT run through this region undefeated. Not to say they wouldn’t have gone on to win state, but not undefeated. When we were 7-0 with big wins over PR and East we took a blow against Mceachern. Anyone that doesn’t think our fight against East didn’t effect our next 3 games is crazy.
williambrado
August 20th, 2009
7:33 pm
You know Lowndes county didn’t throw many passes last because they were not able. If they would have had Tift countys quarterback they could have beaten anyone in the country.Personally im worried about playing Thomasville central tomorrow night.Lowndes will probably win 7 or 8 games this year.
wildcat fan
August 20th, 2009
9:21 pm
Grayson Student, if i remeber right you only return 9 starters from last year. Thats not much more than 7 but you say 6. Weak region and all but we still won the title. How many does Grayson have. Camden’s non region schedule over the last 5 years, HOOVER ALABAMA, LOWNDES, PARKVIEW, NORCROSS, LAKE CITY FLA, WALTON, CHATT, A TEAM FROM SOUTH CAROLINA, AND NOW GRAYSON just to name a few. We can not help what region we play but we schedule the best non-region teams possible. Who has played a schedule that tough. Oh by the way Camden petition the State a few years ago to move into region 1 but was denied.
Beast from East
August 20th, 2009
9:59 pm
I’m willing to give south Georgia People some attention for the good teams and history.
But the writing is on the wall. If you step back and look at all the programs up North coming your way, WOW is all I can say, times are changing. Again the stud Coaches came down to Georgia “East Paulding” because of the great tradition coming out of Region ONE, So again love to yall but we be coming.
Grayson Student
August 20th, 2009
10:12 pm
No doubt yall are a great program, there is no questioning that from anyone at grayson. But lets be honest its a huge rebuilding year down there and your quarter back is 5′4 150 pounds… just a heads up, if he runs in to ANYONE on our defense his night could be done rather abruptly.
Grayson Student
August 20th, 2009
10:14 pm
And I know yall cant help the region you play in and put up 70 with relative ease but with only 2 state championships i wouldnt call that a powerhouse… yes thats more than grayson but look at the bigger picture grayson has been open 10 years
titletown
August 21st, 2009
3:53 am
WHY ISN’T VALDOSTA IN THE TOP 10 AT LEAST NUMBER 9 0R 10? U CAN NEVER COUNT OUT THE WILDCATS IN HIGHSCHOOL FOOTBALL. LET’S FACE IT THEY R NOT WHAT THE USE TO BE BUT THE CATS R LIKE THE DALLAS COWBOYS AMERICAS TEAM AND WILL FIND A WAY TO WIN
SouthGARules
August 21st, 2009
8:13 am
Grayson Student: Wouldn’t the same theory apply to Ean Pemberton as well? He is the same size as the Camden QB. I know you said your defense, but Grayson does not have the market cornered on defensive stalwarts. Another thing: For a fairer comparison, lets look at Peachtree Ridge. They have been open SIX years & have a state championship as well as a runner-up finish. BTW, Region 8 is about as week as Region 3. Brookwood & Parkview have more name than game & the rest of the region is mediocre at best. Last year Bradwell Institute won their first round game, which is more than I can say about Brookwood, Parkview & Dacula. Yes, I know Region 8 played Region 7 (the real Gwinnett region)
& Region 3 played Region 4.
Raider09
August 21st, 2009
8:38 am
WOW…I was reviewing the AAA rankings and realized how strange it was not to see Shaw. This is first time
in many years that Shaw will open the season unranked.Shaw has a young inexperienced team this year…but still have a lot of good athletes.The first part of the schedule will present another tough challenge as it did last year.Hopefully we will get a few breaks and get off to a good start this year.Shaw will still be a playoff team in 09. Lets Go Raiders!
Pridgelions
August 21st, 2009
10:07 am
P ridge is gonna beast this year. 23 returning starters
George
August 21st, 2009
10:09 am
Reeze, I sure hope your predictions are closer to reality than mine, but I don’t see it. Other than Grovetown, who will Northside be favored to beat? I really think a 5-5 season is the BEST we can hope for, but I do hope I’m wrong.
NTH Trojans
August 21st, 2009
11:32 am
Slalom, Yo, Reeze,
It’s that time of year again. Looks like my NH Trojans will be in for a long season this year with Buford, Flowery Branch, and Gainesville all on their schedule, and NH playing Buford and Gainesville in back-to-back games (thank God that there is a bye week in between the two games). North Hall lost 2 of their key players this year in Cole Smith and Thomas Sprague, both of whom transferred to Gainesville. Remember the name Thomas Sprague this year, he’s a beast who has a knack for always knowing where the play is going, he’s a great playmaker on defense Both FB and Gainesville are loaded this year.We’ll find out who the better team is on Nov. 6.
Slalom, I don’t know if you were at the FB vs LG playoff game last year (I suspect that you were), but FB is supposed to be even better this year. I still think that it comes down to Carver, Col and Gainesville this year in AAA.
Hoyadawg, I was at Harrisons’ scrimmage against Hiram (my son plays for Hiram), and I’d like to know your thoughts on the scrimmage, not the score but how both teams looked. Here’s my point of view; Hiram has a good downfield passing game (it’s hard not to with all that speed, and especially with Dylan Cook out there), very good running game and solid secondary and LB’s. Hiram’s most glaring weakness was the lack of size on their OL and DL. For Harrison, their OL and DL looked good, their backs were fast and used their blockers well, LB’s were solid. Harrisons’ most glaring weakness was their secondary. If the Hoyas face a team that throws a lot, they could be in trouble.
NTH Trojans
August 21st, 2009
11:35 am
Yo,
Don’t give me any of that crap about this being a down year for Lowndes. You probably cloned Greg Reid before he left last year. lol
NTH Trojans
August 21st, 2009
11:49 am
Yo,
In all seriousness, Lowndes is a stellar high school program. I’d say one of the three best, if not the best program in Ga. Good Luck in 2009
Grayson Student
August 21st, 2009
12:21 pm
lets be honest region 8 isnt good at all but from top to bottom its way better than region 3. ean has the qb by 25 pounds plus his size helps him at his position so the d cant find him. your quarterback cant see over the line so thats a bigger disadvantage… and im not doubting that camden is a better program overall. the ridge is a great program as well but still you must be impressed with how far we have come in 10 years
joeinformed
August 21st, 2009
3:25 pm
STEPHENSON ALL THE WAY…………HOPEFULLY WE CAN GET IT DONE FOR THE GREAT TEAMS IN THE PAST WHO DIDNT GET IT BECAUSE OF BAD COACHING BUT BAD THING IS THE COACHING IS THE SAME!!!!!!!!!GO JAGS
slalom1
August 21st, 2009
4:47 pm
NTH Trojans, Glad to see you are back. Transfers are a source of irritation for me. In most cases they are legal, but just ain’t fair. Sorry that N. Hall is being victimized by transfers. As for Flowery Branch, yes I was at the game. FB was most certainly the most improved team in the state. Their defense was suffocating. In 2009, your region along with 2AAA will be the toughest in AAA. Speaking of AAA and transfers….Raider09, I agree. It is almost impossible to be missing the Shaw Raiders in the Top 10 polls. However when one Muscogee County school cherry picks 90% of the county’s top players, there is not much left over for the rest of the schools. 2009 will be a difficult year for every AAA and AAAA school in Muscogee County except for “you know who”. On that note, don’t you think it would be a great idea for GHS football teams to place an * by all the players names who reside outside of the school’s district?
Yo
August 21st, 2009
5:34 pm
23 returning starters? Lets see 11 starters on defense. 11 starters on offense = 22 starters. But Peachtree has 23 returning starters?
No wonder they made the state finals last year. They outnumbered every body they played.
wildcat fan
August 21st, 2009
5:45 pm
GOOD LUCK TOMORROW. We will just show up tomorrow and see what happens if thats ok with you guys. Actually Camden the County has three state championships. Ralph Bunche back in the 60’s won one. Before they combined the two schools to form now what is known as the Camden County Wildcats.
slalom1
August 21st, 2009
7:04 pm
YO, Did you forget about the placekicker, punter, long snapper and holder? LOL. Now, go back to the Kool Aid. LMAO.
hoghunter
August 21st, 2009
7:45 pm
When Charlton was winning the State Championships we where never ranked no.1 . This is a Atlanta paper anyway but these rankings dont count for anything anyway.WE will be ok..
guwinster
August 21st, 2009
8:49 pm
Does the GSWA always pick defending champions as number 1? All I have to say is that if Camden finishes the season at number 1 then Georgia isn’t nearly as deep as last year. We just have too many players to replace. Also, for the first time ever I am not very confident in our pass-defense. We don’t have any big recruits in the secondary and in the Charlton scrimmage game our pass protection over the middle was practically nonexistant. Charlton ran the same over-the-middle play to their tight end at least 5-6 times. It looked like we had some kind of a linebacker zone going and we never picked the end up off the line.
Sorry slalom, I kind of morphed your Wing-T statement into the more common “running attacks are boring, negative football” argument. I don’t know if you feel the same about run attacks in general, but you didn’t say so in the post I responded to.
Pridgeondeck
August 21st, 2009
11:05 pm
Yo-don’t be an ass. It was a typo. By the way what school do you root for anyway. Don’t hate just cause we have gotten farther in the last 6 years then some schools will ever get. Thanks for your concern though!
Yo
August 22nd, 2009
12:52 am
Pridgeondeck writes “By the way what school do you root for anyway”.
New to the blogs are you? I pull for that little ole team that doesn’t have a chance against PTree in 2 more weeks.
Be nice to us….ya hear?
VA 7
August 22nd, 2009
7:28 am
Did anyone see the tucker/stephenson scrimmage? Is tucker ready for another run? Did stephenson wing-t look better?
PRidgeonDeckk
August 22nd, 2009
9:18 am
Yo- lowndes. Thats Cool. Well that should be a good game.
nukieie
August 22nd, 2009
11:20 am
PRidgeonDeckk you can’t be so senitive…..Yo has been on here for years…. you have to learn comic retotic…. he is here, like so many of us for the FUN if the friendly competition….. some on here get way to serious…. after all it is just a highschool game…we all make typos from time to time….but if you do expect to hear about it on here…. it is all in fun….but when you get all mad about it, it shows you level of maturitury.
SY
August 22nd, 2009
12:19 pm
WAIT A MINUTE!!!!
Y IS MICHAEL THORNTON OF STEPHENSON NOT IN THE SUPER 11
Camden Wildcat Super Fan
August 22nd, 2009
1:50 pm
I AM STILL WAITING TO SEE IF WE CAN FIND THE GAME TONIGHT ANYWHERE ON RADIO – OR ON INTERNET. FOR SOME REASON, OUR RADIO STATION IS NOT ALLOWED TO BROADCAST IT. PLEASE HELP US KEEP UP WITH THE GAME. THX
olesarge
August 22nd, 2009
4:45 pm
CWSF you can here the game online. Google sportstalk radio 790 Atlanta and follow the links.
slalom1
August 22nd, 2009
5:25 pm
Gunwinster, yeah, that was sort of where I was going. Personally. there is nothing I like better than watching a successful running game. In a traditional “Wing T” the QB rarely throws the ball more than 6-9 times per game. That is not frequently enough for the QB and receivers to get into any kind of a rhythm. Keep in mind, I did say “traditional”. I have observed some extremely bright Offensive coordinators who basically run the “Wing T” but have found creative ways to spread the field and throw the ball more. This in turn helps the running game by keeping the defense honest. My brother YO makes a good point in saying: “if the defense can match up, it will slow down that offense.” That is a fact. Another fact is that in watching a creative Offensive coordinator for successful teams such as Lowndes and Camden County, they show so many different sets that it is somewhat difficult to place a “tag” on exactly what offensive scheme they are running. Bottom line is that regardless of whether a team is running a Wing T, Power I, Wishbone, Veer, etc. There are right ways and wrong ways to call the offense. Winners are winners regardless of their offensive “tags”.
JDP
August 22nd, 2009
7:21 pm
Hey YO- As slalom1 points out, you do realize that football teams have an Offense, Defense and SPECIAL TEAMS, right?
SY
August 22nd, 2009
7:36 pm
stephenson will go far this year
JDP
August 22nd, 2009
7:40 pm
As I do every year, Ive read a lot about Camden County’s “weak” region schedule. I think we all agree with that statement, but does anyone honestly believe their is a region in Georgia that would be able to hold the Wildcats back from the play-offs? One or two, MAYBE even three loses in a year but the bottom line is… Camden would make the play-offs and succeed regardless.
Pridge senior
August 22nd, 2009
7:58 pm
Setting the record straight, P. Ridge is returning 13 starters, including QB Lombardo. Its not as good as 23, but its better than most other rosters. http://www.gwinnettdailypost.net/GDP-SpecialSections-2009/GDP-Football_Preview/football.html
Pridge senior
August 22nd, 2009
8:14 pm
congrats to Grayson on beating camden just now 14-10. Wow. Grayson sounds unbeattable this year, especially on defense.
Camden Wildcat Super Fan
August 22nd, 2009
8:15 pm
OleSarge – THANKS SO MUCH FOR THE INFO – got to hear it all, tho in the end Camden lost. So sad, but they will make it up, I am sure. From one sarge to another, SGM K
Brookwood Mom
August 22nd, 2009
9:53 pm
I have a message for the FAT, YELLOW TEETH GRAYSON MOM that told me she hopes my son breaks his leg! YOU MS. FAT ASS should be ashamed of yourself!! YOU have absolutely no class. You to take your fat hefty ass back to hickville and feed your pigs, goats, and chicken and read a book on mannerism.
rwdekalbfan
August 22nd, 2009
11:41 pm
Grayson looked very good against Camden County in Dome, game should not have been that close. Grayson has awesome defense. They appear to be the best team in AAAAA.
rwdekalbfan
August 22nd, 2009
11:51 pm
For those that did not hear about the Peachtree Ridge – Southwest Dekalb scrimmage. The game ended in 7-7 tie. Southwest Dekalb starters shutout Peachtree Ridge starters 7-0 for 3 quarters. Pridge tied the game when both teams put their second string units in for the fourth quarter. Ummm interesting.
rwdekalbfan
August 22nd, 2009
11:55 pm
That number 2 for Norcross is an amazing receiver. He made unbelievable catches against Walton in the Dome.
Yo
August 23rd, 2009
12:09 am
Grayson…the all high school team of the century. Look out world, here come the Rams! Gwinnett’s best ever football team. Georgia’s best ever football team. 2009 Grayson Rams. Seasons already over with.
Lets just crown em state champs.
haha
August 23rd, 2009
2:41 am
Grayson does NOT want to see stephenson
they have the most complete team in the state!!
every position is d-1
with good depth
dont sleep on the jags!!!
wildcat fan
August 23rd, 2009
9:06 am
Good job Grayson great defense offense needs work. One punt from Camden and you might have lost. You should be very worried Camden which has such a young team with three freshman starting nearly beat them. If thats your county’s best team ever thats not good. You won and thats all that matters. Actually from all the press i expected more. I hope grayson is not the best team in AAAAA if they are then Georgia football is down this year. You very nearly lost to a very young Camden County team. Good luck the rest of the year. We will see you again in December. Your seniors are at thier peak, but our freshmen and sophmores will get better. Pemberton is good a highschool player no where near D-1 material. Not even Ga Southern, or Valdosta State would offer him. To small. He should have made the quarterback switch earlier.
rwdekalbfan
August 23rd, 2009
9:54 am
Hey Stephensen fans just lay low and let your play speak for you. You guys probably have the best shot at knocking off Grayson. I believe this year your team is actually underrated so use that to your advantage and fly under the radar for awhile. Dekalb needs to represent in 5A like Tucker did in 4A last year. Lets go Dekalb.
Reeze
August 23rd, 2009
10:20 am
I think in AAAAA it’s way to early to crown the champ.Grayson played Camden well , but Grayson, the best team in GA and nationally ranked made too many mistakes I thought they should have played better against a young Camden squad……..I think Lowndes is still the frontrunner…..Yes no Greg Reid ! ,might turn out to be a good thing for Lowndes, Franklin and the other kids in the backfield are fast as lightning.which will make defenses prepare for multiple threats.If you have ever seen a Lowndes game in person (not tv) it’s hard to figure out which back has the ball.Good call by Macpherson putting Franklin at wing back,I always felt that was the best position for him.Now if he could just add a little passing to his attack,maybe he will. I will say that Lowndes ,Grayson , Camden and maybe another surprise team are frontrunners for the crown.
Purple & Gold
August 23rd, 2009
11:56 am
Hey mike mike, i guess the bearcats were ready for your makers last night, though cairo did make a good showing trying to make a comeback, had me nervous, but our D stepped up when needed. Bainbridge is young, and still learning Pilchers veer. The Bearcats will be a force soon. Bainbridge had a great fan support as well, probably more Bearcats than Maker fans.
slalom1
August 23rd, 2009
7:03 pm
Let’s see, it is now 6:58 p.m. Just about time for YO to be waking up from his afternoon nap. Forget about all the political correctness. He WILL be grouchy. lol. “JDP” Thanks for the special teams support. Special teams usually account for 20-30% of the total plays in a high school football game.Kickers and special teams players seem to never get the credit they deserve.