Class 2A blog: In brief — Maybe no tougher path to title than Callaway’s

Episode 14 of The Class 2A Blogcast is now available. To break down the quarterfinals, this week’s guests are WALB sports director Paige Dauer, WJBF sports director Brendan Robertson, voice of the Callaway Cavaliers and West Georgia Podcast host Andrew Caraway and Blitz founder Brian Carter. Listen in the embedded player below or download on Apple, Amazon/Audible, Spotify or iHeartRadio.

The quarterfinals are next and will feature plenty of intriguing matchups. Notably, there’s only one instance where two No. 1 seeds will face off, and that’s in the upper-right quadrant, where the top-ranked Fitzgerald Purple Hurricane (11-0) travel to the No. 7 Fannin County Rebels (10-0).

For a full recap of Round 2, go here. For an updated 2A bracket, visit GHSA.net.

The lower-left quadrant features the only remaining No. 4 seed, regardless of classification, in the Bleckley County Royals, who will travel to play the No. 2 Rabun County Wildcats.

In the lower-right quadrant, the Bremen Blue Devils travel to No. 5 Jefferson County as the tournament’s only remaining No. 3 seed.

And in the upper-right quadrant, you have the No. 8 Callaway Cavaliers. On Friday, they beat the No. 4 Lovett Lions. Now, they’ll host the No. 3 Thomasville Bulldogs. Should they survive, there’s a good chance they’ll play No. 2 Rabun County. If they win that, there’s a possibility they’d face No. 1 Fitzgerald in the championship. So, for the Cavs to win their first-ever state title, they may have to beat the Nos. 1-4 teams in descending order. The likelihood that’s ever happened, regardless of classification or state, is slim.

The cliche goes, “to be the best, you have to beat the best,” but I doubt whoever came up with that saying — professional wrestling legend Ric Flair is the first credited with using a similar catchphrase in the 1980s — had that tall of an order in mind.

Mathematically, it’s impossible to have a tougher path to a championship from a rankings standpoint. In my time covering Class 2A, which began in 2013, I can certainly recall difficult routes to the hardware. In 2015, the road-warrior Pace Academy Knights won their first and only title as a No. 4 seed. In 2017, the Hapeville Charter Hornets won their first and only title after losing three consecutive coin tosses to play on the road, starting with top-ranked defending champions Benedictine in the quarterfinals. When the title game was postponed and moved from the warm, indoor confines of Mercedes-Benz Stadium, 15 miles from school campus, they again lost a coin toss and were forced to travel 120 miles north into the cold mountain town of Tiger to play Rabun County.

While the paths of Pace Academy and Hapeville Charter were arduous, Callaway’s potential road may top that.

Now, onto my predictions. Here’s where they currently stand:

(For enlarged bracket, right-click and open in new tab.)

Another round, another of my semifinalists eliminated. I was pulling for South Atlanta’s continued rise because the up-and-coming underdog makes for a good story. That they’re based here in Atlanta is also a bonus. However, in Episode 12 of The Class 2A Blogcast (at the 2:05:16 mark), which was an in-depth preview into the state tournament, I had originally picked Bremen to win the lower-right quadrant. However, when it came time to post my predictions in the blog, I talked myself out of picking the Blue Devils to make it past the second round. Perhaps I should have stuck with them. However, Jefferson County is looking very strong and is currently my pick to win the quadrant.

The Bleckley County Royals continue to make me eat my prediction of their first-round exit, once again making easy work of a ranked opponent by beating No. 6 Early County 41-7. When they eliminated Vidalia last week, I pivoted to Rabun County as my favorite to emerge from that quadrant, and that hasn’t changed.

On both sides of the upper bracket, the teams I picked to meet in the championship game — No. 3 Thomasville and No. 1 Fitzgerald — appear to be playing at the level necessary to make it that far, though both have tough challenges on the road this week. I still pick them to prevail and advance to the semis.

So though my bracket has taken a beating, my finalists are still firmly in the mix heading into the quarterfinals.