Three weeks remain in the regular season, but not everyone can wait until the playoffs before filling out the brackets. One of those people is Loren Maxwell, the Georgia High School Football Historians Association founder and computer ratings authority who does playoff projections starting in preseason and updates them weekly on AJC.com. Below are class-by-class assessments of Maxwell's latest projections. Images of Maxwell's eight brackets are too large to publish here but are linked in the classification headings. Click those for a closer look that includes each playoff team's seed, ranking and power rating.
Maxwell projects Lowndes vs. Colquitt County in the final, with Lowndes winning its first championship since 2007. That's an all-South Georgia, all-Region 1 matchup, as most know. Maxwell sees Region 3 rivals McEachern and Marietta losing in the semifinals, and he gives North Gwinnett the next-best chance of cracking the final four. The most interesting revelation of Maxwell's projections, however, might be the gravity of the Marietta-Hillgrove game Nov. 1. The winner, according to Maxwell, will get the No. 2 seed behind McEachern in Region 3 and reach the semifinals in the weakest quarter of the draw. There are no other top-10 teams in that top quarter. The loser will go down in the first round to Colquitt County, per Maxwell.
Maxwell's bracket predicts that No. 1 Dacula and No. 2 Valdosta will face off prematurely in the quarterfinals. Neither powerhouse is a cinch to win its region, though, as No. 4 Lee County and No. 5 Lanier remain unconquered. Maxwell surprisingly projects No. 6 Coffee to beat out Region 1 rival Lee County and reach the final against Valdosta. (Maxwell has no data on the Florida team that upset Coffee and might overrate the Trojans a tiny bit, but that remains to be seen.) Meanwhile, Harrison has the friendliest draw. The Hoyas are almost certain to win Region 6 and would be a 13-point favorite or better against any other team in their projected quarter, according to Maxwell. The softer quarter of the draw is the top one. Maxwell doesn't regard likely region champions South Paulding/Mays or Tucker/Stephenson highly enough to ward off Region 1's No. 3 seed - potentially Coffee or Lee County. And the No. 2 from Region 6, which projects to be Allatoona, also could exploit that opportunity, as well.
Buford is predicted to defeat Carrollton in the final, with Region 4 teams Jones County and Dutchtown losing in the semifinals. Maxwell doesn't consider projected region champions Southwest DeKalb, Griffin and Riverwood as top-12 teams in this class, and they're sitting in Region 4's wheelhouse in the draw. As for Buford and Carrollton, they have an additional advantage of having already taken control of their regions, so these projections don't figure to change that much. In fact, the most significant AAAAA game of the season was probably Carrollton's 21-20 victory over Rome on Sept. 13. Although Ware County is no pushover, Carrollton is clearly favored to reach its first semifinal since 2013. But Rome's punishment for that slim defeat is a potential trip to No. 4 Warner Robins in the second round, the winner to face No. 1 Buford.
Blessed Trinity beat Marist in the 2017 final. Maxwell projects Marist to avenge that defeat in the 2019 final. Semifinals featuring Marist vs. Cartersville and Blessed Trinity vs. Sandy Creek would be virtual toss-ups, per Maxwell, while the Marist-Cartersville winner is the team to beat. Let's caution that Marist has a ways to go to win Region 7, with games against Flowery Branch and Blessed Trinity. Woodward Academy, ranked No. 3, is charged with meeting No. 1 Cartersville too early in the quarterfinals. The AAAA draw doesn't have many imbalances, though. It is interesting seeing Maxwell put Mary Persons in the quarterfinals again. The Bulldogs are 4-3 and 27 points below their 2018 strength, according to Maxwell, but have a good draw whether they win or lose this week's Region 2 showdown with West Laurens, another projected quarterfinalist.
Peach County, ranked No. 1 in the human polls, is not projected to survive the quarterfinals, where Cedar Grove looms in a potential rematch of the 2018 championship game, which Cedar Grove won. But which team might win that game isn't as significant as the likelihood that they'll meet that soon. Third-ranked Pierce County and fourth-ranked Greater Atlanta Christian also are slated to do battle in the quarters and in the same half as Peach-Cedar Grove. That is a blessing to any team on the other side of the draw. Maxwell sees Jefferson beating Jenkins, which will have defeated Crisp County and North Murray, respectively. But don't count out Lovett, Westminster or Liberty County. The Jenkins-Benedictine matchup Nov. 8 has huge ramifications. Win, and the finals are realistic. Lose, and Cedar Grove is waiting in the second round.
Dublin is Maxwell's projected winner but also faces a difficult draw with three near toss-up games starting with Hapeville Charter in the quarterfinals. Otherwise, it's a balanced draw. Rockmart is Maxwell's choice as the runner-up with Callaway and Rabun County as semifinalists. What makes AA interesting are the teams chasing history. Dublin last won a state title in 2006. Rockmart last won in 1950. Callaway and Rabun County have never won state titles. Hapeville won in 2017. Those are the highest-rated five teams, and the average point spread in games between them would be 2.8 points. No other classification has so much parity and suspense.
It would take a real computer alpha geek to predict how the GHSA power ratings are going to turn out. Eagle's Landing Christian - the four-time defending champion - is not going to win its region. Thank Holy Innocents' for that. The Golden Bears beat ELCA 42-41 in Region 5 on Sept. 20. Region champions must be seeded ahead of non-champions. There might be as many as six private-school region champions from these integrated public/private regions. Maxwell estimates there will be five - Savannah Christian (Region 4), Holy Innocents' (5), Darlington (6), Mount de Sales (7) and Athens Academy (8). Brookstone (Region 4) could make it six, but that's counterweighted by strong public contenders in regions 4 and 7. But the point is that ELCA will be an under-seeded Category 5 hurricane, and Maxwell places No. 1-ranked Athens Academy in its direct path for the quarterfinals. Meanwhile, No. 4 Darlington and No. 5 Fellowship Christian can't both win Region 6, so how that plays out also will be huge come November.
The public teams also have one of those ELCA-like bracket busters. That would be Clinch County, the likely runner-up in Region 1. But Maxwell forecasts only three public-school region champions (Irwin County, Pelham and Manchester), so Clinch is projected as the No. 4 seed, and the draw should be non-controversial. The Maxwell Ratings predict Irwin County to defeat Clinch in the semifinals and win its first state title since 1975 over Pelham, which is seeking its first state title.
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