Reigning state champions Milton, Thomas County Central and Coffee will all be competing for one title this season after the GHSA’s most reclassification pushed the three schools into the second-largest class (now 5A) for the 2024-25 and 2025-26 school years.
This year’s reclassification process was complicated by the GHSA’s decision to eliminate one class, in this case Class 7A, which contained the state’s largest schools. Now the biggest schools in terms of enrollment are in Class 6A, and Class 5A contains the next-largest schools.
Milton won its second Class 7A championship in six seasons when it defeated 31-21 on Dec. 13 at Mercedes-Benz Stadium. The Eagles won 10 consecutive games to end their season after starting the year 3-2. Milton won its first state title in 2018, lost in the championship game in 2021 and reached the semifinals in 2022. The Eagles were No. 1 in the Maxwell Ratings’ 2024 Class 5A preseason projections and are likely to be No. 1 in the AJC’s first rankings, which will be released this weekend.
“Our guys do not really get caught up in the 5A vs. 6A debate for two reasons,” Milton coach Ben Reaves told Georgia High School Football Daily last week. “For one, they know I’m going to load up the schedule and play the best talent I can in the state and nation, so whatever labels are put on them will not be dictated by a class. And secondly, they know Milton is the winningest program in 7A over the last six seasons. … So when you use Milton as a baseline and then look at all of the other great teams in 5A, including three state champions from 2023, you realize the gap really isn’t that big when you get down to the top 10 in each class.”
Thomas County Central moved up two classes from 4A two years ago and exceeded expectations, considering it had not had a winning record in lower classes since 2016. In two years in Class 6A, the Yellow Jackets went 27-1 and won the 2023 state championship with a 49-28 victory over Woodward Academy.
Coffee won a state title for the first time in school history when its defeated Creekside 31-14 in the 2023 Class 5A championship game. The Trojans spent six of eight seasons in Class 6A between 2012 and 2019, reaching the championship game in 2017, before dropping down for the past four seasons. Now they’re back in the second-largest class, in a tough region that includes Northside-Warner Robins, Lee County, Houston County, Veterans and Thomas County Central.
Milton and Coffee are two of 21 schools that moved into the new Class 5A. Coffee moved up from the old Class 5A along with Arabia Mountain, Banneker, Bradwell Institute, Chamblee, Chattahoochee, Clarke Central, Decatur, Dutchtown, Greenbrier, Lithia Springs, Loganville, McIntosh, Northgate, Statesboro, Tri-Cities, Villa Rica and Winder-Barrow. Seckinger, a third-year school in Gwinnett County, essentially jumped two classes from the old 4A.
Milton and Kennesaw Mountain are the only two schools that dropped into 5A from the highest class. Kennesaw Mountain has spent most of its existence in the largest class but did drop down for two years in 2020-21 and won a playoff game for the only time in school history.
To make room for the new schools, 17 schools moved to other classifications. Notable among them are Marist, Allatoona and Blessed Trinity, which dropped into Class 4A. All three schools have won at least one state championship in the past decade. Other teams moving to 4A are Mundy’s Mill, Jonesboro, Forest Park and St. Pius. Ten schools – Alpharetta, Douglas County, Etowah, Grovetown, North Atlanta, North Forsyth, Paulding County, Rockdale County, South Cobb and Tift County – moved into the highest classification.
