6A vs. 7A: Which GHSA class is tougher? Coaches on both sides weigh in

The gap between Georgia’s top two high school football classifications could be shrinking, if it even exists, according to coaches of some of 6A’s most successful teams.

Their assertions come on the heels of Class 6A Thomas County Central’s historic season in which the Yellow Jackets averaged nearly 54 points per game and beat every opponent by 14 or more on the way to a 15-0 season. Some believed Thomas County Central was as good or better than Class 7A Buford, the consensus national champion.

The season before, Milton won Class 6A with a 15-0 team that finished as the consensus No. 2 team nationally.

This season, 2025 Class 4A champion Creekside, which went 15-0 and set the state record for points in a season, is moving into the second-highest class.

The top classification, Class 7A, still boasts some of the top teams in the country. Reigning consensus national champion Buford spearheads a widely perceived “big three” with blue bloods Carrollton and Grayson. Other national brands like Valdosta, Colquitt County, Douglas County, Lowndes, McEachern and North Gwinnett are also expected to challenge for the 7A title.

But the Class 6A heavyweights can’t be ignored.

The reigning Class 5A and Class 4A champions, Thomas County Central and Creekside, are the perceived favorites in 6A, which also features contenders Milton, Gainesville, Roswell, Hughes, Lee County, Rome, Jackson County and Kell.

Thomas County Central coach Justin Rogers doesn’t even see a debate.

“There ain’t no argument, and anybody that argues is foolish,” said Rogers, who previously coached at Colquitt County, a Class 7A school. “Go look at it. Look at the state championship teams, the state championship coaches, and just the caliber of teams we’ve got, both players and coaches in 6A.

“I’d bet you we’ve got 16 or 17 teams that you could make a legitimate case could win a state title this year, and I don’t think you could make that case for any other classification, that many that you really think could win.”

Rogers’ team is coming off one of the most dominant seasons in school history, finishing a 15-0 campaign with a 62-21 state championship win over Gainesville. Buford’s state championship win was certainly less decisive, a 28-21 win over Carrollton in a game that many national pollsters viewed as a de facto national championship.

A Maxwell Ratings simulation favored Buford’s 2025 title team over Thomas County Central’s by a mere three points with a 54.8% chance of victory. Milton’s 2024 team would’ve been favored by five points over that year’s Class 7A champion, Grayson, according to Maxwell.

Thomas County Central will compete in a particularly strong region this season. The Yellow Jackets are one of three teams (including Coffee and Lee County) in Region 2-6A that have won a state championship in the last decade.

One of the schools in that region that hasn’t won a title recently is Northside of Warner Robins, where state champion coach Daniel “Boone” Williams is in his second season. Trying to revive a former title contender, Williams agrees with Rogers’ assessment.

Williams said he could name roughly six 7A teams that could realistically compete for a championship. In 6A, he figured, the list is much longer.

“You can go to 6A, and you can run them off,” Williams said. “You got Gainesville, Creekside, Roswell, Milton, Thomas County Central, Houston County, Coffee County, Lee County, (Jackson County and Hughes).

“I didn’t reach for those 10. I ran them off.”

Creekside coach Maurice Dixon offered more numbers to support Class 6A’s case.

“You look at the number of state champion head coaches in any classification, and 6A is the highest,” Dixon said. “I felt like what they did was they took 4A and 5A, and they said, ‘You know what? We’re going to put the best teams together and see what happens.’”

To Dixon’s point, 13 of Class 6A’s 63 teams have head coaches who have won a state title while six of Class 7A’s 51 teams are coached by state champions.

Perhaps no Class 6A coach knows the two classifications better than Milton’s Ben Reaves Jr., who has opened the season against Buford the last two years. The Eagles won 13-10 in 2024 before falling 20-13 last season.

Reaves said coaching and talent has been elite in both classes, making their top teams comparable. To Reaves, the biggest difference between the two is that 7A teams tend to have more depth at each position.

“I want to make sure I don’t come off as disrespectful, because both classifications are going to be very hard to win,” Reaves said. “Neither one is going to be easy, but I do think there are more championship teams in 6A this year, so your second to third-round (playoff) game in 6A I think is going to be against someone that you could argue could win a state championship, and I don’t know that you’ll get those heavyweight matchups as early in the 7A bracket.”

Class 6A’s depth is recognized at the highest level, too. Colquitt County coach Sean Calhoun wasn’t as passionate in his praise for Class 6A as Rogers or Williams, but he did recognize that the second-highest classification might be tougher than his own this year.

“I think 7A is probably always going to be deeper just for the sheer number of big programs, but you can probably go to your top 15, I mean, every school that we just named in 6A could go toe to toe with the top 10 or 15 in 7A,” he said.

Buford coach Bryant Appling believes Class 7A is the top classification but also said 6A coaches “definitely have an argument.”

“I wouldn’t say either one is better, but I still think 7A is still going to be at the top at the end of the deal, but the bottom line is there’s not much difference between the numbers of kids at some of these schools, as far as the total for the whole school,” Appling said. “I could say we’re really, really close to even, probably as close to even as the highest two classifications have ever been, and that’s even the last couple of years. That’s not just this year.”

Calhoun and Appling notably both open their seasons against elite 6A opponents. Colquitt County visits Thomas County Central on Aug. 21, and Buford hosts Gainesville on Aug. 22.