A Georgia quarterback has thrown for 3,500 yards in a season 19 times, according to the Georgia High School Football Historians Association. All but one took place in the past 10 years, or since Hutson Mason became the starting quarterback at Lassiter High in Marietta.

That was 2008. Mason threw for 3,705 yards in 12 games that year as a junior, a quarterback who seemed destined to waste away in a running offense until an Alabama coach named Chip Lindsey got the Lassiter job, installed a spread offense and used Mason to rewrite Georgia's record book. Lindsey is now the offense coordinator at Auburn.

Mason's 2008 effort was 5 yards short of Jeremy Privett's state record set at Charlton County in 15 games in 2003. In 2009, Mason threw for 4,560 yards, the most in state history, a record broken in 2016 by Griffin's Tylan Morton.

All this happened in the highest classification at a school that had played 26 seasons without a state-playoff victory before Mason and Lindsey came along. Lassiter scratched that itch in Mason's first season, then won Lassiter's first region title in his second.

Mason had passing performances that at the time Georgia had never seen. He set a state record when he threw for 545 yards in a 2009 win over Milton. Then in the playoffs, Mason threw for 552 with eight touchdowns against South Gwinnett.

Mason might not go down as the state's best quarterback now that Deshaun Watson and Trevor Lawrence have come along. But he's still close. And there probably has not been a more significant and influential player at his position.

Best player in school history series