Class AA blog: Semifinals preview

Of the semifinalists, the most recent to win a state title is the Fighting Irish in 2006 but they were AA's co-champions with Charlton County, as they played to a tie in the final. The most recent outright champion is the Trojans, who won the 1994 Class A title in the first season of current coach Maurice Freeman's first stint with the program (1994-97). The Bulldogs won AAA in 1988.

In all, the Fighting Irish have four titles (1959, 1960, 1963, 2006), as do the Bulldogs (1958, 1973, 1974, 1988). The Trojans have one title and Callaway, which opened in 1994, has zero.

As for this week, we'll start with the Trojans and Cavs. They have a recent playoff history as just two seasons ago the Trojans beat them 31-0 in the quarterfinals in Quitman. Maxwell's projections have Cavs favored by six, so it's possible they get their redemption in front of the home crowd.

If you consider it an advantage, the Cavs have the edge in next-level talent with seven players holding Power 5 offers, led by Auburn commits Tank Bigsby, who was recently upgraded by Rivals to five-star status and the country’s No. 1 running back, and lineman Tate Johnson. The Trojans, on the other hand, have no reported Division I offers in the Rivals database.

What the Trojans do have, however, is stability, consistency and one of the best coaches in the state. Freeman, who began his second stint with the program in 2008, and his teams have advanced in the playoffs every year since he returned. This is the fifth time he’s led the Trojans to the semis since then, and the second time in three years. In total, Freeman is 155-51 at Brooks County and 209-103 overall in 26 seasons.

The Trojans, ranked No. 7, haven’t lost since Thomasville emerged from what appeared to be a lost season and beat them 31-20 in the Region 1 opener for both teams. In the playoffs, they’ve outscored once-ranked Washington County, top-ranked and previously-undefeated Rockmart, and No. 9 Metter by a combined 118-23. All of their losses have come to ranked teams, which they’re now 5-4 against. To say this team is battle-tested would be an understatement. If anything, we know the Trojans won’t be intimidated by the Cavs, and that the moment won’t be too big for them. Freeman will have the team prepared.

Like the Trojans, all of the Cavs’ losses came to ranked teams. The only difference is they have just one defeat, which came to an Alabama team, Opelika, 10-7 in their season opener. Opelika is the No. 5-ranked team in the state’s second-highest classification (AAAAAA) and also reached the semifinals. It was a legitimate loss for the Cavs, and it let them know right off the bat that they could be beaten. They must have taken that to heart given their 12-game win streak.

The Cavs do it with offense and defense, averaging 43 points while giving up just 11.5. They’ve posted four shutouts, including three in a row to end the regular season. They’ve won close games, including a 56-45 shootout over AAAA’s then-No. 3 Troup. They came back from a 14-0 hole to Douglass last week to clobber them 41-20. And with Opelika, they’ve faced a tough defense that held them to a touchdown, so there isn’t much they haven’t seen or aren’t prepared for. (The Trojans have given up an average of 22.3 points this season but that has shrunk to 7.6 in the playoffs).

Also like the Trojans, the Cavs are consistent and stable, led by Pete Wiggins, who is 138-46 in his 15 seasons at Callaway. They’re in the semis for the second year in a row, the third time in four seasons and fourth time since he’s been there — but they’ve never reached the title game. Before he arrived, they’d never won a playoff game.

On the other side of the bracket is another longtime coach in the Fighting Irish’s Roger Holmes, who will face off against a relatively newer head coach in the Bulldogs’ Zach Grage. Holmes is in his 18th season at Dublin, where he’s posted a 159-59-1 record, which was preceded by 11 seasons at Beech (Tenn.). In total he’s 232-108-1. He immediately turned the Dublin program around when he arrived in 2002, guiding a team that finished 4-7 the year before to a 14-1 finish and the AAA title game. He’s hoping to take Dublin to the championship for the third time in his tenure, and this is his fourth semis appearance.

Grage is in his fourth season at Thomasville, where he’s 33-15 after one season at Gilbert (4-6). Though he doesn’t have the extensive resume of Holmes, he has transformed the Bulldogs program in his short time there. He took over a team that finished 1-8 in 2015 and improved them to 5-5 his first year, then 12-1 — the most program wins since their 15-0 championship season in ‘88. They’ve advance in the playoffs in each of the last three seasons and are in the semis for the first time since 1993.

More importantly for the student-athletes, Grage has made the program a boon for recruiting. For the 2018 class, he helped get Charlie Thomas, a previously-lightly recruited defensive back, an offer from Georgia Tech, where he ultimately committed. Senior Payten Singletary is committed to Cincinnati and Grage groomed Chad Mascoe, a Florida State commit who, as the nation’s top pro-style quarterback for the class of ‘22, played his freshman season for the Bulldogs before he was poached by national powerhouse IMG Academy (Bradenton, Fla.).

Losing Mascoe could have been considered a setback, or an excuse for a lackluster season. That’s what the Bulldogs appeared to be headed for after starting 0-3 and 2-4. But they saved their best football for region play, which began Oct. 11 against Brooks County. They haven’t lost since the week before that, ripping off seven wins in a row. Last week their defense held Rabun County — which came in averaging 46.25 points — to a season-low 24. The offense is doing its part as well. They hung 67 on Berrien in the next-to-last-game of the regular season and are averaging 41.3 points in the playoffs.

In Mascoe’s absence, junior Ronnie Baker is 181-of-302 passing for 2,207 yards and 17 touchdowns to seven interceptions, and he’s rushed for 637 yards and eight touchdowns on 101 carries. Freshman Ricky Fulton is the team’s leading rusher with 883 yards and 10 touchdowns on 166 carries. Defensively, sophomore linebacker Ty Anderson leads the team in tackles with 120 — 17 for loss — and eight sacks.

Unlike Thomasville, the Fighting Irish steamrolled through the regular season all the way up to the finale, when they blew a chance at perfection by dropping their first game to unranked Washington County, 27-23. It was an otherwise meaningless game, however, because they’d already locked up Region 3. They immediately jumped back on track in the playoffs with three three-score victories, including 35-12 over once-No. 1-ranked Hapeville Charter last week.

The Irish are led on offense by three senior running backs who each have over 1,000 yards, including top rusher Jaques Evans, who through 11 games had 1,704 yards and eight touchdowns. He’s rated as a three-star and holds six offers, including one from the Power 5 in Arizona State. The defense is anchored by three-star linebacker and Miami commit Romello Height.

*A previous version of this story incorrectly stated Grage’s record at Thomasville.

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