Buford is officially Georgia's most respected team nationwide. The Wolves are ranked first among Georgia teams in every national poll, peaking at No. 7 by PrepNation.
Meanwhile, skeptics back home still question whether Buford, a Class AAAA school, should be considered the best without playing against the state's largest schools year in and year out.
Tonight, Buford gets its chance - a meeting with preseason No. 1 McEachern of AAAAAA. McEachern's luster has faded a bit since an opening 52-49 loss to North Gwinnett and a season-ending injury to star running back Taj Griffin, but for Buford's fan base, it's the chance to answer critics.
That wasn't the reason for the game, though. Buford coach Jess Simpson told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution's David Purdum that the McEachern game happened almost by chance.
"I called [McEachern coach Kyle Hockman] looking for a scrimmage," Simpson said. "He said he still needed a game, and I said we'd play them. Before you knew it, I was looking at the toughest pre-region schedule in the 20 years of being at Buford."
Buford defeated nationally ranked Trinity Christian Academy of Jacksonville 17-0 in its opener. Buford has played three teams from Georgia's highest during the 2001-13 era of winning nine state titles from Class A to AAA. The Wolves beat Central Gwinnett's 2005 state quarterfinal team 43-21 but lost to Central the year before. Buford beat East Coweta, a first-round big-class team, in 2007.
Not the biggest, but the best
How common is it for a team in a lower classification to be the best in Georgia? According to the computer Maxwell Ratings, Buford was Georgia's top team in 2013 and 2010. Buford's 2003 team is one of the 10 best teams below the highest classification of all time, according to Maxwell, whose data extends to 1948, the start of statewide classifications.
Here are those 10:
1997 Thomas County Central
1988 Thomasville
1994 Washington County
2003 Buford
1985 West Rome
1997 Washington County
1975 Americus
2006 Northside, Warner Robins
1950 Rockmart
1990 Cairo
See Maxwell's rankings of the best teams of all time here.
Region 6: Got some catching up to do
It's early, but Region 6-AAAAAA is off to a 1-9 start. Region play begins this week, so there's no way to change its reputation until the playoffs. Loren Maxwell, the computer ranker, rates Region 6 as the 19th-weakest among 465 in Georgia's highest class since 1948. Further, the average team in Region 6 is 30 points weaker than the average team in Region 1, according to Maxwell. But one must go back only two years to find a weaker region in the highest class - Region 2 in 2012. Lovejoy won the region and played Norcross for the state title, but the other six teams had losing records and went 0-3 in the playoffs. Another tidbit: Five of the seven weakest regions of all time in the highest class were the old Savannah-dominated Region 3 (2008-11 and 2001). The worst of all time was Region 5 in 1989. That was a Cobb-dominated region won by McEachern.
Region 1: Now this is domination
So what is the strongest region in history, you ask? The Maxwell Ratings say that Region 1 has 19 of the best 20 regions in the history of the highest class. The exception is Region 6 in 1978 (ranked sixth all-time) in the heyday of Griffin, Morrow and Newnan. The best league of all time, according to Maxwell, is Region 1 in 1984. Valdosta won state and national titles and delivered Colquitt County its only two losses in an era where only the region champ advanced to the state playoffs. The computer notes that eventual state runner-up Clarke Central struggled with third-place Tift County, winning 15-9, and fourth-place Lowndes, losing 31-6.
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