AA in brief: Temple honored by Fox 5

By Adam Krohn

Sept 13, 2016

On Saturday, the top-ranked Fitzgerald Purple Hurricane scored a win of historic proportions as they beat Macon County 70-42. According to FitzgeraldAthletics.com, it was the most points the Purple Hurricane have scored since 1933. Channel 13 WMAZ has highlights of the game, which featured four scores from AJC Super 11 running back JD King. One of King's scores earned him RecruitGeorgia's Week 4 play of the week honors and made the site's top 10 plays.

Fitzgerald's win put the exclamation point on Week 4, which featured most of its games on Friday.

There was movement in the top 10. Vidalia's 28-7 loss to West Laurens bumped the Indians five spots to No. 9 and allowed Jefferson County, Callaway, Model and Rabun County - all of those programs won - to move up at least one spot, with Model moving up two spots.

The Dodge County Indians have a losing record at 1-2, including Friday's 41-34 defeat to AAA's unranked Appling County. They hang by a thread in the rankings at No. 10, likely because of how competitive they've been through three games. They narrowly lost 24-20 to Vidalia and beat then-ranked West Laurens 3-0.

Heard County opened the season in the top 10, but looked unimpressive in its season-opening win over South Atlanta to lose its spot in the rankings. With two more wins, coupled with some losses of other ranked teams, Heard County earned its way back to a No. 10 ranking last week, but have again lost its spot with a 28-14 loss to A-private's No. 6 Darlington.

That allows the Dublin Fighting Irish to debut in the rankings, coming in ahead of Vidalia and Dodge County at No. 8. The Fighting Irish already have four wins under their belt, though only one has come against a winning team: their season opening 14-13 win over AAA's Tattnall County (2-1). Their other three wins have come against teams (AAAAA's Veterans, A-private's Wilkinson County, Swainsboro) that are a combined 1-9.

Here’s a glimpse at the updated rankings, with the previous week’s rankings in parenthesis:

1. (1) Fitzgerald (2-0)

2. (2) Benedictine (3-0)

3. (3) Brooks County (2-0)

4. (5) Jefferson County (3-0)

5. (6) Callaway (3-0)

6. (7) Rabun County (2-0)

7. (9) Model (4-0)

8. (NR) Dublin (4-0)

9. (4) Vidalia (2-1)

10. (8) Dodge County (1-2)

Out: No. 10 Heard County (3-1)

In brief:

Last week the Temple Tigers were nominated for Fox 5's High5Sports Team of the Week, and staged a "furious comeback" in the voting to win the honors. As a result, Good Day Atlanta traveled to the school on Thursday to present the Tigers with a trophy. A day later Temple defeated Armuchee 56-7 to move to 3-0, proving to Armuchee that the Tigers are faster. The Tigers have outscored their opponents 140-61.
Giovanni Morgan of B.E.S.T. Academy, R.J. Carr of Dodge County, Kyler Eldridge of Model and Bailey Fisher of Rabun County all earned GHSF Daily Top performances from Week 4 honors, while Fitzgerald's offensive line was named Offensive Line of the Week.
No. 2 Benedictine honored former coach Tom Bracket at Friday's game, inviting all former Cadets who played for Bracket to attend. Brackett coached the Cadets from 1995 to 2005, compiling a 89-39 record. The Cadets went on to beat Southeast Bulloch 33-6.
Banks County quarterback Griffin Godwin earned accessWDUN Player of the Week honors, passing for five touchdowns and 250 yards in a 54-35 win over Johnson.
Speaking of quarterbacks, Rabun County's Bailey Fisher had a huge game with seven passing touchdowns and 370 yards in the Wildcats' 49-7 win over White County. Here are highlights from the game.
The Columbus Ledger-Enquirer's David Mitchell profiles Jordan's offense in this feature.
Yes, Model, you have everyone's attention.
The Screven County Gamecocks beat AAAAA's Statesboro 35-21 and are now 12-3 over their last 15 games.
Footage of Toombs County's 49-35 win over Telfair is available to watch.
Perhaps Maurice Freeman, coach of the No. 3 Brooks County Trojans, was sending a message to his players?