This week, Region 6 will become the first in Class 6A to begin league play, but the standings already have an unusual feel to them less than three weeks into the regular season.
Sitting at the top are the region’s only undefeated teams, Kennesaw Mountain and Osborne, two long-suffering teams that have found reaching the postseason more than elusive over the past couple of decades.
In the middle of the pack is Kell, the region’s runner-up in 2020 and a playoff regular in its 19-year history.
Down at the bottom is perennial power Allatoona, which has won four region titles and reached the quarterfinals or beyond seven times over the past 10 seasons, including 2020.
But that all could be about to change as the region’s nine teams begin league play Friday, with every team essentially starting over at 0-0.
Allatoona remains the favorite in the despite an 0-2 start in non-region play that included a 25-17 overtime loss to Class 7A Harrison and a 6-0 loss last week against Hughes in a game that was shortened to less than two quarters because of inclement weather. The slow start isn’t unusual for the Buccaneers. They lost their season opener in five of the past six seasons but still managed to average 9.8 wins per year in that stretch. The computer Maxwell Ratings rank Allatoona as the overwhelming favorite to win the title.
Kell has started the year 1-1, with a lopsided loss to McEachern in the Corky Kell Classic before rebounding with a 20-16 come-from-behind victory at Hillgrove last week. The Longhorns can establish themselves early as the top threat to Allatoona if they can beat candidates Pope and Kennesaw Mountain in their first two region games.
The wild card in Region 6 is Sprayberry, which has yet to play its first game because COVID wiped out scheduled contests against Riverwood and Collins Hill. The Collins Hill game was ruled a Sprayberry forfeit, so the Yellow Jackets enter region play officially 0-1 overall. Sprayberry is coming off back-to-back 6-5 playoff seasons and is a leading candidate to make it back again.
Kennesaw Mountain made the playoffs last season for the first time in the program’s 21-year history and gave eventual quarterfinalist River Ridge a scare in the first round, losing 35-34. The Mustangs are off to a 2-0 start this year, with victories over East Paulding (28-12) and Discovery (41-12). The first three region games will be tough – at Allatoona on Friday, followed by Sprayberry and Kell the next two weeks – but the Mustangs could run the table after that and be back in the playoffs again.
Of the remaining five teams in the region, Pope appears best positioned to make a run at the playoffs. The Greyhounds opened the season with a 24-14 victory over Villa Rica and played better than the score would indicate in a 34-7 loss to Class 7A No. 4 Walton last week. Pope has been a hard-luck team over the past two seasons. A late-season swoon in 2019 (losing three of their final four games) dropped the Greyhounds to fifth place, and COVID essentially sunk their playoff hopes last year.
Wheeler, Lassiter and South Cobb finished in sixth, seventh and eighth place in Region 6 last year, and they are off to a combined start of 1-5 this season. The lone victory among the group belongs to South Cobb, which got by Locust Grove 21-14 in the opener but lost to Pebblebrook 54-6 last week. All three are playoff long shots.
As for Osborne, there’s a ton of work to be done to be considered a playoff contender, but the Cardinals’ 12-0 victory over Woodland-Cartersville last week was significant for the program as well as first-year coach Luqman Salam. The win was just the third for Osborne since the start of the 2016 season, and longtime Hillgrove assistant Salam became the first head coach to win his debut with the Cardinals since Rodney Hackney in 2004, a span that includes nine head coaches.
“We want to continue to just get better one day at a time,” Salam told Anna Snyder of the Marietta Daily Journal. “We’ll be better tomorrow than we were today, and [we want to] focus on our own personal progress. That’s really our goal.”
Here are the Maxwell preseason projections for the final Region 6 standings:
1. Allatoona
2. Kell
3. Sprayberry
4. Kennesaw Mountain
5. Pope
6. Wheeler
7. Lassiter
8. South Cobb
9. Osborne
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