GHSA’s winningest active coaches face off in clash of 5A private school powers

Blessed Trinity and Marist have packed more high-stakes games into their nine-year-old rivalry than some do in a century.

Previous games include a state championship, upsets of No. 1-ranked teams and a triple-overtime region championship.

The Titans and War Eagles, No. 2 and No. 3 respectively in Class 5A, will play for the 10th time on Friday in what the Maxwell Ratings grade as the second-highest-rated game of the weekend.

Both teams have been ranked in the Top 10 every time they’ve played. Marist and Blessed Trinity have the second longest streak of consecutive top-10 games between two teams in GHSA history (Fitzgerald and Irwin County had 12 from 2014 to 2025).

They also enter Friday led by the GHSA’s two winningest active head coaches. Marist’s Alan Chadwick has the second-most wins in GHSA history with 460, just 17 wins shy of the all-time record held by Larry Campbell.

Blessed Trinity’s Ed Dudley enters with 246, putting him at 36th all-time, but only second to Chadwick in active GHSA coaches.

“(Coaching against Chadwick) is horrible. I hate it,” Dudley said. “You just know what you’re going to get as far as preparation, as far as the discipline of the team, the intensity of the team.”

Marist has the more experienced coach — Chadwick has led the War Eagles since 1985 — but the Titans have more talent this year, starting with AJC Super 11 selection DJ Jacobs.

The 5-star linebacker’s younger brother, Dawson Jacobs, is a four-star defensive lineman. But the defensive talent doesn’t stop there.

“We knew about the two Jacobs kids, but you look at two or three of the others, and they’ve got offers from Memphis and Tulane and other places like that, but they’re extremely talented,” Chadwick said. “The thing that impresses me even more so than where they’ve been in the past is their offense is a lot cleaner.

“A little bit more simpler, but just definitely doing what they’re doing better at a higher execution level.”

Marist won last year’s matchup, a 28-10 victory in the second round of playoffs. It marked the War Eagles’ fourth consecutive win in the rivalry.

That streak isn’t lost on the Titans, who are trying to beat Marist for the first time since 2019.

“We talk about it,” Dudley said. “I definitely feel the pressure and know that it’s a thing.”

Blessed Trinity enters the contest at 4-0, while Marist is 3-1, with its only loss being to Class 7A Brookwood, which boasts its fair share of future Division I players.

Chadwick said he saw his team compete well against Brookwood’s talented roster, but failure to execute in key moments spelled a 27-21 loss.

“Particularly in our offense, we’re not very explosive, so we can’t afford to have a no-gain or a two-yard loss or a three-yard loss, or it’s going to make it really difficult to get the first down,” Chadwick said.

To Chadwick’s point, the two teams are built similarly. Both attack with run-heavy offenses and physical defenses.

“I think it’s going to be a real physical, hard-hitting game,” Dudley said. “I think that’s where the thing starts and ends. We were talking yesterday. You can do all this and all that and prep however you want, but at the end of the day, this is a blocking and tackling and turnover game.”