Here's a by-the-numbers look at the second round of the Class AAAAAA playoffs, which will be played Friday and cut the field to the final eight teams.
*10 – Teams ranked in the top 10 at the end of the regular season that advanced to the second round. All won by at least 20 points except for No. 8 Lanier, which survived a scare from Sprayberry and pulled out a 15-14 victory. At least three will fall this week – No. 7 Allatoona plays at No. 10 Stephenson, No. 6 Coffee plays at No. 9 Mays, and No. 4 Valdosta plays at No. 5 Johns Creek.
*2 – Undefeated teams remaining in the field. Top-ranked Dacula and No. 2 Harrison were the only teams to make it to 10-0 in the regular season, and both survived Round 1. Last year, Creekview and Lee County were the only undefeated teams left in the second round. Creekview lost to Lee County in the quarters, and Lee became the first 15-0 team in the second-highest class since 2013.
*27.3 – Average margin of victories for the 16 winners in a first round that went mostly as expected. Only two games were decided by fewer than 14 points, and six were decided by 30 or more. The computer Maxwell Ratings expect the lopsided results to continue in the second round, projecting that all but three of the eight games will have margins of at least 18 points.
*186-30 – Combined score of Region 1’s four-game sweep of its Region 3 opponents in the first round. Houston County, the No. 4 seed from Region 1, knocked out Region 3 champion Evans 31-21. No. 3 seed Coffee eliminated Heritage-Conyers 60-0. No. 2 seed Valdosta beat Lakeside-Evans 45-9. Two-time defending state champion Lee County, the No. 1 seed, beat Greenbrier 50-0.
*4 – Teams remaining in the Class AAAAAA field that entered the playoffs as No. 3 or No. 4 seeds and had to play on the road in the first round. In addition to Coffee and Houston County from Region 1, road winners in the first round were Creekside (No. 3 seed from Region 5 beat Alpharetta 28-0) and Brunswick (No. 3 seed from Region 2 beat Morrow 34-13). All are on the road again this week.
*8.18 – Points per game allowed by Stephenson, the lowest of any team in Class AAAAAA. The Jaguars surrendered 20 points in their first-round victory against Bradwell Institute but had given up a total of just 27 in their seven-game winning streak to close out the regular season. Stephenson’s opponent this week, Allatoona, is coming in off a season-high 49-point outing against Gainesville.
*2,554 – Final senior-season rushing total for Dalton’s Jahmyr Gibbs, who led the state during the regular season. Gibbs ran for 196 in his final high school game, a 49-18 loss to top-ranked Dacula last week. North Atlanta’s T.K. Mack, the state’s second-leading rusher in the regular season, finished with 2,087 yards. His Warriors’ were eliminated from the playoffs by South Paulding 41-27 last week.
*5,654 – Combined passing yardage this season for Valdosta quarterback Tate Rodemaker and Johns Creek’s Ben Whitlock, whose teams face each other in the second round. Rodemaker passed for 215 yards (unofficially) and five touchdowns in the Wildcats’ 45-9 victory over Lakeside-Evans last week. Whitlock threw for a season-high 380 yards and four TDs in a 59-34 victory over Alexander.
*23 – Years since Richmond Hill has played in the state quarterfinals, the longest drought of its kind among the remaining AAAAAA teams. The Wildcats are trying to get there for the first time since the school’s 1996 team beat East Laurens and Thomasville in the first two rounds and finished 9-4 in AA. South Paulding (opened in 2006) and Johns Creek (2009) have never been to the quarters.
*0 – Games in its long history that Glynn Academy has ever played against Gwinnett County schools. That’s a number that will change this week when the Red Terrors travel to top-ranked Dacula. Glynn Academy lost to Valdosta in the second round last year but reached at least the quarterfinals the previous four years, including a runner-up finish in 2015. Dacula was a semifinalist last season.
Schedule
Here are the second-round matchups. All games are Friday:
Allatoona at Stephenson (Hallford Stadium)
Coffee at Mays
Lanier at Richmond Hill
Valdosta at Johns Creek
Glynn Academy at Dacula
Creekside at Lee Co.
Brunswick at Harrison
Houston Co. at South Paulding
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