Congrats to the Pace Academy Knights. You are the 2015 Class AA football champions, having convincingly beat the Fitzgerald Purple Hurricane at the Georgia Dome on Saturday by the score of 42-21.
Both the Knights and Purple Hurricane return key starters to next season's program and appear poised to make another state title run. However, there is an unfortunate circumstance: The Knights can't defend their AA title, because they're moving to Class AAA.
In fact, all relevant teams from Region 6 of Class AA - Pace, GAC, Lovett and Wesleyan - will move on to other classifications. Region 6 definitively owned Class AA this season, with the league sweeping the first round and representing half of the semifinals.
That leaves Fitzgerald by itself with Benedictine in AA as the most recent quarterfinalists, along with Jefferson County and Rabun County.
If Fitzgerald is to win the state title next year, it has the luxury of not facing the team that dominated it in the state title game. Benedictine could still reload and shut the Purple Hurricane down next year - who knows?
But let's not forget, with every reclassification year comes a few newcomers.
Elbert County, Dodge County and Callaway are three programs that leave Class AAA ranked in the final season poll to join AA next season.
It's a shame Region 6 was broken up, because that was great competition. But AA breathes a fresh air of new competition and any fan should welcome the new alignment.
If I had to guess, Rabun County wins AA next year.
P.S. - Fitzgerald refers to itself as the "Purple Hurricane," not the "Purple Hurricanes." That gets confusing when fans show up at the Georgia Dome wearing Fitzgerald "Purple Hurricanes" shirts.
Get it together and make up your minds, folks.
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