Top-10 teams in Class AAAAAA fared much better in Week 3 than they did in the first two weekends of the 2018 high school football season.
The teams ranked in this week’s AJC poll went 8-2 on Friday. That’s a significant improvement from the 8-11 record that ranked teams has posted during the first two weeks of the season.
Notable among the winners on Friday were No. 1 Lee County and No. 2 Coffee, the two teams that met for the state championship last season. Lee County had little trouble in a 33-0 victory over Peach County, the No 3 team in Class AAA. Coffee survived a trip to Class AAAAA No. 8 Ware County and came home with a 21-14 victory.
Here are some of the other big stories in Class AAAAAA from Week 3:
*Ranked teams lose: Richmond Hill has been ranked for three weeks since the 1996 season – twice in 2017 and once this week, when it moved into the AJC poll at No. 6. Each time, the Wildcats lost their next game. This time it was a 23-21 loss to Wayne County (No. 7 in AAAAA). The Wildcats lost to Brunswick and Effingham County as a ranked team last season after starting the year 7-0. The other ranked team to lose was No. 8 Northside-Warner Robins, which lost 35-27 to Jones County (No. 9 in AAAAA). It was Northside's second loss to Jones County in the past three meetings and dropped the Eagles to 1-2 for the first time since 1997.
*Making a statement: Creekview has not made the playoffs since being placed in Region 6 before the 2016 season, but the fifth-ranked Grizzlies served notice in their region opener that that could be about to change with a 24-13 victory over Allatoona, the preseason favorite to win the region, according to the computer Maxwell Ratings. Grizzlies quarterback Ethan Dirrim passed for 89 yards and two touchdowns and rushed 152 yards, including a 76-yard touchdown run. Creekview went 1-7 against the region's playoff teams (Allatoona, Dalton, Harrison and Sequoyah) the past two seasons. Creekview is 3-0 for the first time since 2009.
*Finding their happy place: Tucker started the season with lopsided losses to Gwinnett powers Buford and Grayson, but the Tigers took out their frustrations Friday when they returned to the friendly confines of Region 4, beating Forest Park 55-15. Tucker won Region 4 each of the past two seasons, posting a 14-0 region record in the process and having only one game that was decided by fewer than 20 points. Tucker is tied for first place with Lovejoy and Morrow, which won their region openers last week. Tucker has next week off. Stephenson, the region runner-up last year, opens region play next weekend against Mount Zion-Jonesboro.
*Another one slips away: Gainesville lost a fourth-quarter lead against a Forsyth County opponent for the second consecutive week, losing to Lambert 16-15 to fall to 0-3 for the first time since 1995. Gainesville led 15-3 entering the fourth quarter, but Lambert got two touchdown passes in the final seven minutes. "There were times tonight when the game was over," Lambert coach Louis Daniel told Ian Frazer of the Forsyth County News. "We were left for dead." Last week, Gainesville gave up a 20-yard touchdown pass with 20 seconds remaining in a 24-21 loss to North Forsyth. The Red Elephants led that game 21-13 with nine minutes left.
*Representing the region: No Class AAAAAA region has had a tougher go of it than nine-team Region 5, which is 3-14 through the first three weeks. The schedule was light on Friday, but Northgate was the only winner from the region, holding off Starr's Mill 31-29. Starr's Mill scored a touchdown with less than a minute to play, but the Vikings stopped the game-tying two-point conversion attempt. The victory was the first at the school for first-year coach Mike McDonald, formerly at Newnan. Other Region 5 teams in action were Alexander (lost to Newnan 42-20) and South Paulding (lost to Hiram 30-12). Tri-Cities hosts Southwest DeKalb on Saturday.
