Poll Talk: Lassiter takes over at No. 1 in AAAAAA
Lassiter had played varsity football for 38 seasons before winning a region championship or finishing a regular season 10-0. Those achievements came in 2009.
Now, the Trojans have reached a new milestone. They are the No. 1-ranked team in Class AAAAAA.
Lassiter takes on the top spot after previous No. 1 Camden County lost to Colquitt County 13-12 last week. Lassiter completed its second-ever 10-0 regular season with a 34-6 victory over Etowah.
Lassiter and Norcross are the only 10-0 teams in the highest classification entering the state playoffs, which begin this week. Lassiter had never been ranked in the top 10 until 2009, so the rise to the top has been quick and recent.
New to the rankings this week are South Gwinnett for Parkview in AAAAAA, Stephenson for Thomas County Central in AAAAA, Carrollton for Carver-Atlanta and Monroe Area in AAAA, Callaway for North Hall in AAA, Screven County for Cook in AA and Aquinas and Walker for Prince Avenue Christian and Savannah Christian in A.
The next rankings will be published after the state championship games Dec. 14-15 at the Georgia Dome.
Class AAAAAA
1. (2) Lassiter (10-0)
2. (3) Norcross (10-0)
3. (4) Grayson (9-1)
4. (5) North Gwinnett (9-1)
5. (1) Camden County (9-1)
6. (6) Lowndes (9-1)
7. (7) Lovejoy (9-1)
8. (8) West Forsyth (9-1)
9. (10) Colquitt County (7-3)
10. (NR) South Gwinnett (8-2)
Class AAAAA
1. (1) Northside-Warner Robins (10-0)
2. (2) M.L. King (10-0)
3. (3) East Paulding (10-0)
4. (6) Kell (9-1)
5. (7) Tucker (8-2)
6. (8) Ware County (9-1)
7. (9) Warner Robins (8-2)
8. (10) Flowery Branch (8-2)
9. (NR) Stephenson (7-2)
10. (5) Allatoona (9-1)
Class AAAA
1. (1) Sandy Creek (10-0)
2. (2) Marist (9-1)
3. (3) Burke County (9-1)
4. (5) Stockbridge (9-1)
5. (6) Griffin (9-1)
6. (7) Jonesboro (9-1)
7. (8) Cairo (8-2)
8. (10T) Westside-Macon (9-1)
9. (10T) Ridgeland (9-1)
10. (NR) Carrollton (7-3)
Class AAA
1. (1) Thomson (10-0)
2. (2) Carver-Columbus (9-1)
3. (3) Buford (7-3)
4. (4) Washington County (9-1)
5. (5) Peach County (9-1)
6. (6) Cartersville (10-0)
7. (7) St. Pius (8-2)
8. (8) North Oconee (9-1)
9. (10) Blessed Trinity (8-2)
10. Callaway (9-1)
Class AA
1. (1) Calhoun (10-0)
2. (2) Brooks County (10-0)
3. (3) Vidalia (10-0)
4. (4) Fitzgerald (8-2)
5. (6) Lamar County (9-0-1)
6. (8) Heard County (10-0)
7. (9) Jefferson (9-1)
8. (10) Lovett (6-4)
9. (5) Greater Atlanta Christian (7-3)
10. (NR) Screven County (9-1)
Class A
1. (1) Eagle’s Landing Christian (9-1)
2. (2) Emanuel County Institute (9-1)
3. (3) Athens Academy (10-0)
4. (5) Lincoln County (9-1)
5. (7) Wilcox County (8-2)
6. (9) Irwin County (7-3)
7. (10) Wilkinson County (7-3)
8. (8) Calvary Day (9-1)
9. (NR) Aquinas (8-2)
10. (NR) Walker (10-0)
Tell us what you think about the site
Customer Care »
Vacation stops, manage subscriptions and more
AJC Services
Sections
Other Editions
Visitor Agreement | Privacy Statement
© 2013 The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
257 comments Add your comment
bksmith14
November 12th, 2012
1:26 am
just finished watching lassiter game vs walton……..not even close to the # 1 team. i will leave it at that. and the visitor side appears to be the smallest visitor stand i have ever seen
bksmith14
November 12th, 2012
1:28 am
#5 for lassiter is quik though and dangerous…i just was not impressed with lassiters overall speed…..walton sacked the lassiter qb a lot. to me they will be in big trouble when they play a great defense and a team with a lot of speed. top 10 team….but i dont think they are even top 5….just my opinion
High 5
November 12th, 2012
4:42 am
If Colquitt Co. can learn to win games early in the season then they wouldn’t have to travel so far come playoff time!
DOSTA DAWGS
November 12th, 2012
5:12 am
If any South Gerogia team wins the state title it will be a good slap in the face to North Georgia. We have only 4 out of the 32 playoff teams in this tournament.
Region 1AAAAAA RULES
November 12th, 2012
5:15 am
@ Todd Holcomb – I watched the South Gwinnett vs. Parkview game on tv. Let’s be real honest, South Gwinnett is not a top 10 6A team in the state!! They would finish 6 or 7 if they played in region 1 6A.
Monroe's First Redcoat
November 12th, 2012
5:55 am
Still not sure how my Hurricanes could fold up like a sheet of wet paper in a breeze against Eastside, but now that the distraction of being unbeaten is off the books, let’s get after Shaw!! The season starts anew Friday!!
Riiiiiight
November 12th, 2012
7:24 am
Every year – EVERY year – we all have to put up with some nonsense about a Cobb team being at or near the top of the rankings???? Why???? It has been 44 years since a Cobb team won the state championship. If you’re thinking that Lassiter has any chance at all – please re-read the previous sentence until you get it into your head that no, they do not. They went 10-0 and had a great season, but it was against the other dregs of Cobb/Cherokee County. Can we stop this charade every year, please? Who makes these polls up anyway? It’s not a knock against Lassiter. It’s a knock against Cobb. The football there is a step and a half below the rest of the state at the AAAAAA level.
Pack Daddy
November 12th, 2012
7:25 am
Mr Sportsnut, you are an idiot. Last year your Lovejoy school had 5A numbers but competed in 4A. Don’t break your arm patting yourself on the back. You reaped the benefit of a sorry education program in your school when you lost accreditation. Maybe if teachers spent more time in the classroom and less time on the blogs this would improve. Numbers go up and down and all around but you still can’t win the big games. Region 2 stinks. Region 3 is even worse. You go 1-1 and only because Tri-Cities is terrible.
tuna had no chance
November 12th, 2012
7:25 am
Dallas Ga., Nov. 9 2012
Allatoona Bucs football players were disturbed when they encountered an unknown white powdery substance on the field during a losing effort against the East Paulding Raiders fri. night. After officials investigated the substance was found to be the goal line. Play resumed and the E.P. Raiders continued to desimate the bucs 25-7. Sources with Allatoona reported that thier players were unlikely to encounter the substance again.
TROJAN NATION
November 12th, 2012
7:48 am
I appreciate all of the comments regarding Lassiter. After reading several of the comments I am surprised GHSA let’s us participate in Football. Either many of you bloggers are well respected experts or you could be bitter middle aged men sitting behind an anonymous screen name on your computer.
Congratulations to all of the teams in the post season. You have earned it.
HS Dad
November 12th, 2012
7:58 am
It’s amazing how much passion there is about HS football. I’ve played and watched HS football in GA since the early 1970s. I went to Lakeside, and I remember when nobody thought that new school in the middle of suburban GA couldn’t beat the traditional powers–until two state championships later and 15 total losses in the decade of the 70s.
Lassiter will have an opportunity to prove itself. However, they’ve quickly built a good pedigree. Last year they went on the road and beat three teams with combined records of 31-3–including teams built on a lot of speed (MLK, McEachern, Alpharetta.) This is clearly the best of their teams the past 5 years–solid in every area. Biggest challenge has been focus–have jumped on top of teams and not stepped on their throats. If everybody remains healthy, it will take any other team’s A game to beat them.
JustHere
November 12th, 2012
7:59 am
Valdosta getting dissed. I believe they spanked Colquitt and should have beaten Lowndes.
Jimmy Love
November 12th, 2012
8:10 am
Too bad Lassiter won’t make it far in the tourney. They’re almost like the Oregon of GA HS football.
FWIW Todd – a couple corrections, the school opened in 1982, so it was 28 seasons before finishing 10-0. Also they were ranked in the top 10 quite a few times throughout the mid-late 90s and also early 2000s.
JustHere
November 12th, 2012
8:12 am
Here are your Top 5 teams that are overrated, and get the Atlanta bias:
1. Lassiter
2. Walton
3. South Gwinnett
4. West Forsyth
5. Parkview
Razor
November 12th, 2012
8:30 am
Just hair. Your fat and smelly. Nobody cares what you think.
Jay
November 12th, 2012
8:46 am
@Hey…… Monroe Area was ranked 4th in 4A last week but they lost to east side last week to finish the season 9-1. So that one loss dropped them out of the top 10. What I don’t understand is how there are two teams in the top ten with 2 or more losses. I am sure these two teams are good football teams but come on. Before the Sandy Creek game, Carrollton was ranked 4th with two losses!?
I Love IT
November 12th, 2012
8:54 am
New kid on the block (Lassiter) and it’s just eating you guys alive. LOL. It doesn’t matter what any of you say our boys will get it done on the field, where it counts. They had a great run at the end of last year and it just continued this year. I guess MLK, McEachern, Alpharetta just rolled over and played dead last year. We were not suppose to beat Brookwood in the Corky Kell classic, we would lose to MLK, surely we would not beat McEachern, of course Alpharetta would stop us. We lost to Walton and we beat them this year. The same people who are talking now said we would lose to Hillgrove, Kell secondary was too good for us, and of course we would not be able to stop Milton running game. Our boys played the schedule given to them, with two good out of region games in Hillgrove and Kell.
I would like to say Congratulations to the Lassiter football team and to the coaches. Also, Congratulations to all 31 of the other teams who made it to the playoffs, all 32 teams earned it on the field.
Doc1
November 12th, 2012
9:04 am
Congrats to MLK who had 3 coaches in 4 years and won region 6 AAAAA (10-0).
BamaBornDukie
November 12th, 2012
9:05 am
See that Lassiter gets no credit for the following wins in the 2011 Playoffs:
Round 1: Alpharaetta (9-1)
Round 2: McEachern (10-1)
Round 3: MLK (12-0)
Yes, that’s the McEachern team that beat North Gwinnett and Lowndes (at Lowndes) in early 2011.
Yes, the MLK that beat Valdosta (at Valdosta), Stephenson, & Brookwood in 2011.
Not saying Lassiter is the best team…….but LMAO at folks that try to dismiss the success of others as “luck”. Make excuses if you must…….
“Haters…..They Gonna Hate”.
BamaBornDukie
November 12th, 2012
9:34 am
One other thing to think about……Cobb County has seen significant population growth since 1980 in terms of:
1) Overall population
2) Percentage of African Americans
Something to ponder…..take a look at the NCAA Football Championships won by the SEC vs the Big Ten prior to 1970. Now look at the number of National Championships won by each conference since 1970. Teams in the Big Ten when they won the NCAA Championship (AP, UPI or BCS) since 1971= 2. Teams in the SEC when they won the NCAA Championship (AP, UPI or BCS) since 1971= 14.
The historians know what I’m getting at…….Just saying, you have to take a more cerebral approach to explain why Cobb County Football is improving. It’s not going to happen overnight…….but an analysis of the “population” and “on-field” performance trends says a Cobb County Championship is coming…….The Cobb County Population is still growing pretty fast.
LHS Fan
November 12th, 2012
9:46 am
@BamaBornDukie excellent points. When Cobb County schools are projected over 2K they build a new school. Kell was built out of the Lassiter district. Lassiter and Kell student populations combined would equal the Gwinnett schools. Those two programs would make for a team that would be very hard to beat. I believe the the middle school football programs in this area deserve credit for the success in Cobb County. More kids than ever are playing football. The GMSAA does an amazing job getting the kids out to play football.
Good luck to all the teams.
ole dawg
November 12th, 2012
9:55 am
no cobb county school in final 8 teams in AAAAAA sorry==4 from south georgia and 3 from gwinnett and 1 from middle georgia==final game 1 from south georgia and 1 from gwinnett==the winner is ???????
Colquitt County Fans
November 12th, 2012
9:57 am
FOOLS Colquitt County ain’t no joke!!!
They are going to the state; and we going
To win it all!!! You will see!!!
Heisenberg
November 12th, 2012
10:04 am
Lassiter wont make it passed the 2nd round
Lassiter will lose to either brook wood or alp will beat Lassiter
Walton beat Brookwood and Lassiter dominated Walton. The word on these blogs is the Brookwood defense has some holes. Brookwood may score some points, but a defense with some holes is in for a long night.
Alpharetta lost to Milton. Lassiter scored 47 against Milton in a decisive come from behind win on the road.
Both of these playoff games would be at home for Lassiter. Folks making the above statements must not have seen Lassiter play. Although I have to admit I saw Alpharetta and Josh Dobbs on TV this past Friday and a 2nd round match up Alpharetta at Lassiter would be very entertaining. Like Brookwood, Alpharetta may score some points but Lassiter with more offensive balance and a better defense would still come out on top. I see Valdosta at Lassiter playing to come out of that bracket into the final 4. All I know about Valdosta is they come from arguably the toughest region in 6A and I expect they would be a formidable opponent.
Go Trojans!
November 12th, 2012
10:04 am
If you are in the playoffs now, it doesn’t matter if you are ranked 1 or NR! It’s go time! I follow the AAAA classification as my home town Carrollton Trojans will make another run. Might be a good game with Marist in the 2nd round if we can get by Stephens County which won’t be easy.
The Creek, Burke and Marist seem like the teams to beat this year.
We all will see! Good luck to all the teams.
Heisenberg
November 12th, 2012
10:07 am
Funny, recently in AJC when Colquitt was ranked with 3 losses, a headline asked whether or not Colquitt belonged in top 10. Care to run that poll again?
jvillebil
November 12th, 2012
10:11 am
I would have never thought Colquitt would beat Camden, but they did. After going back and looking at their schedule you realize just how brutal it was week in and week out. They played 7 ranked teams. The overall schedule of teams they played was 71-29. They played 5 teams that were 9-1 with Colquitt dishing out 3 of those losses. I’m not a Colquitt fan just a Georgia football fan. I do know that if I saw them on my schedule in the playoff brackets I WOULD be concerned.
So to you Colquitt County Fans: I agrea they ain’t no joke!
Will C.
November 12th, 2012
10:13 am
Is Marist just amazing at every sport?
jvillebil
November 12th, 2012
10:25 am
In looking at Lassiter they played teams with a combined record of 49-51 with just one team finishing 9-1. The next best team was 7-3. The only way I see them going all the way is to outscore their opponents. I never count out a team that can throw the ball. Had they played Colquitt’ schedule I think they would have finished 8-2. They are a great team, and I’ll just watch the playoffs and let the playing do the talking. As long as their passing game is on, they have a chance against anybody.
Colquitt Fan
November 12th, 2012
10:31 am
Valdosta spanked by a total of two points. They did have a big lead buys that’s why you play a full game. We pretty much gave them the game with I think 5 turnovers. I believe we’d beat Valdosta in a rematch. Lowndes beat us by 3 and we were in their territory going for the win. North Gwinnett kicked a GW field goal to beat us by two and we played terrible. In our three losses that we played bad in, we got beat by a total of 7 points. When we play good, well you see what can happen. We have the team to win it all or we could play bad like we have before and go home after this after this game to mceachern, but I believe we’re ready. We play our best ball in the post season
StopHating
November 12th, 2012
10:34 am
Please stop Hating on Lassiter!!!!!!!! So I guess Hillgrove is slow? Didn’t they just put up 30 on Mceachern? Then they say Lassiter can’t beat a team in the top 10. But didn’t Lassiter beat Walton, who beat Mceachern & Brookwood? Point blank there is NO secondary that can stop they’re wr’s especially if #2 is healthy. Don’t sleep on Lassiter’s Defense either! Plus when you get to the playoffs speed & size can be neutralized by COACHING. Ask MLK(out coached), Mceachern(out coached), Alpharetta(out coached) Bigger, Stronger, Faster doesn’t always equate to being better!
StopHating
November 12th, 2012
10:36 am
Wasn’t there 2 teams from Cobb in the same region that made the final 4 last year?
Heisenberg
November 12th, 2012
10:38 am
bksmith14, Lassiter dominated Walton. I was there. It may not have shown in the final score as far as style points go but Lassiter controlled and dictated the game. The other scores you cited are simply Lassiter getting a comfortable lead and then going to the run game instead of embarrassing the opponent. They will rotate 2nd & 3rd stringers in/out which has allowed these inferior teams to appear to get back in the game. But believe it when I tell you Printz could have thrown for 400+ every week if they wanted to. When you see the stats that he threw for 260 and 3 TDs, that is usually by early to mid 3rd quarter. Come playoff time the gas pedal will stay all the way to the floor – and it will need to against better competition.
The “best secondary in state of Georgia” (Kell) was torched for 4 first quarter TD passes. The defense with the #2 prospect in the nation rushing the passer gave up 47 points and over 400 yards in the air to Lassiter. The best or at least the 2nd best (for ‘Cross fans) running back in Georgia was kept out of the end zone. Milton with 3 D1 OL propects and 2 D1 RBs was shut down in 2nd half to help setup the comeback win.
McEachern is getting well deserved respect on these blogs but one of their 2 losses was to the same Walton team which Lassiter soundly beat. One challenge Lassiter has not had to face is a QB and passing game to rival their own. Alpharetta would be that team. As noted earlier, that will be fun to watch and I will be there. Another challenge they have not seen is a suffocating defense like Grayson. I expect to see that matchup in the Ga Dome.
jvillebil
November 12th, 2012
10:49 am
Hillgrove opponents finished 51-49 and Hillgrove gave up almost 20 points a game. I would not consider that a great defense. I don’t have a dog in the fight I just look at statistics and match ups. Besides they finish 6-4. Beating Hillgrove is nothing to really write home about. They averaged giving up 34.5 points a game in their 4 losses.
Jefferson
November 12th, 2012
10:49 am
The next 3 weeks will shut up a lot of people running their mouths.
jvillebil
November 12th, 2012
10:56 am
While McEachern does score a lot of points per game around 37 they also give up a lot 23 per game. So I don’t think a team without a great defense can win state. Grayson, Camden, Lowndes, Lovejoy possiby Norcross all have solid defenses. Lassiter gives up 14 per game but considering their offense averages around 36 that’s a 22 point cushion.
jvillebil
November 12th, 2012
11:02 am
In AAAAA I don’t see anyone keeping Northside WR out of the championship game. East Paulding, MLK would be a tough match up with outside chance at Tucker and Ware County both have good defenses.
little help please
November 12th, 2012
11:02 am
Can anyone fill out the missing teams from the AAAAA brakcets? I think I have it figured but not completely sure.
r3t3=Glynn Academy
r3t4=Effingham Co.
r4t4=Mundys Mill
r7t3=Sequoyah
r7t4=Pope
Does this sound correct?
WILDHAWG2012
November 12th, 2012
11:10 am
@jefferson=AMEN BRO!!!!
jvillebil
November 12th, 2012
11:12 am
reg 3 team 3 Richmond Hill
Regi 4 team 4 Northgate
Reg 7 t3 Pone
Reg 7 t 4 Swquoyah
others are correct
WILDHAWG2012
November 12th, 2012
11:15 am
@jvillebil=Very nice post,really eye opening to some people in the north and they won’t like it but facts or facts and they can look it up.
Heisenberg
November 12th, 2012
11:15 am
I am sure somebody out there has combined records of opponents of all teams in playoffs and would guess that most of them are between 47 and 53 winning percent. You only need to look at the standings for each region to see regions are mostly comprised of 3 good teams, 3 bad teams, and a couple in the middle. When you play all the teams in your region the W-L record is going to just about zero itself out. So what would tip the overall record of a teams opponents is out of region games which for travel reasons often includes teams in other classifications. The outliers in this I would guess is the regions 1 & 8 teams where you have 5 or more quality teams that are winning all of their out of region games. So unless a team has played a schedule against teams with a 65% or more winning or losing percentage, I do not see where it does much more than give us something to talk about on these blogs.
I put more value in if team A beat team B and team B beat team C then I expect team A to beat team C. It is not always that simple though.
jvillebil
November 12th, 2012
11:25 am
Heisenberg, I agree with most what you say. I just started it off earlier pointing out that Colquitt really played the toughest schedule in the state losing 3 games by a total of 7 points and played 5 teams that finished 9-1 with them dealing out 3 of those defeats. I think they are capable of going all the way, but then again they did lose 3 games so they are also capable of losing.
I love statistics, but you know what, statistics don’t play the game. But when I see a team only giving up 7-9 points a game I know those stats came about because they have a good defense. I believe that 4 of the states 6 classifications will be won with good defense.
Voyceofreason
November 12th, 2012
11:34 am
One score that opens my eyes is from a game played just 10 days ago, and it should concern some of the folks posting here: Lassiter 28, Roswell 14. Roswell was 2-6 heading into that game at Lassiter. The same week, Grayson beat Archer 48-0; that would be 6-3 Archer at the time, which lost to Parkview and Brookwood by a combined three points. In the two previous weeks, Lassiter gave up 53 points combined to Milton and Wheeler. Grayson gave up 47 total in its last SEVEN games. And that’s just a comparison to Grayson. Lassiter hasn’t even played a game this season against anyone currently ranked in the AAAAAA Top Ten. Conclusion: Lassiter might be the weakest No. 1 team heading into the playoffs this state has ever seen.
Heisenberg
November 12th, 2012
11:36 am
jvillebil, as noted Colquitt coming out of that region is definitely one of those outliers. Colquitt at McEachern to me looks like the most intriguing game in round 1. Followed by Parkview at Walton if TJones were healthy, but my gut tells me his career at Walton is done.
Heisenberg
November 12th, 2012
11:49 am
Conclusion: Lassiter might be the weakest No. 1 team heading into the playoffs this state has ever seen
Thanks for the BB material.
The only other team that can even sniff at the #1 ranking would be Norcross and considering their resume it would have been understandable if they would have leap-frogged into that spot. Lassiter can use the respect angle as motivation. As for Norcross, I get the impression they do not care about it and are content with playing it out on the field.
jvillebil
November 12th, 2012
11:50 am
Heisenberg, If Jones is done so is Walton. Parkview should have won the S. Gwin game. And if they play like they did against Grayson Walton won’t beat them.
Colquitt vs McEachern is definitely a toss up #1 vs #4. Colquitt plays well on the road.
wolfbait67
November 12th, 2012
11:51 am
Release the cats..they need to go to the sand pile………..time is getting short………….
jvillebil
November 12th, 2012
11:52 am
I wouldn’t count Norcross out for making a run.
sportsnut
November 12th, 2012
12:02 pm
@ Yo == Try defending Joshua Dobbs and Carlos Burse. Dobbs is the state passing leader and an all-state Qb . Burse is in the recieving leaders and also an all-state team member.
@ PackDaddy == There is nothing wrong with the education system here. All that was done by dumb adults who had a sense of self promotion and power struck and forgot they were here for the kids. I am not faculty. They are where they are supposed to be, in school like you. Lovejoy has a record of 47-29 in the highest class. We were in the highest class when we opened in 90′ although we had AAA numbers. 7 of the last 11 years we have been in the highest class. What is your point?
@ Old Dawg == Who is from middle georgia that will be in the final 8 ?