A few of Georgia high school football’s championship programs are off to a bit of a slow start through the first five weeks of the 2025 Georgia high school football season.
It’s a host of recent state championship programs, or teams who have been championship-caliber programs over the past decade.
In Class 6A, Mill Creek, North Cobb, and Walton are off to a slow start through the first half of their 2025 season. While it’s not necessarily alarming, it’s also not the dominant start that we are accustomed to seeing from programs like the Hawks.
Mill Creek, who have won 44 games over the previous four seasons, won the Georgia Class 7A state championship in 2022 with a 14-1 overall record.
They defeated Carrollton 70-35 in one of the most dominant seasons of any Georgia high school football team in the state that year.
Their 11 wins per season average from 2021 to 2024 could be in jeopardy if their current ratio of two wins per every four games continues.
In fact, Mill Creek will win five or six games if their current trend continues.
North Cobb, who are 47-12 overall over the past five seasons under head coach Shane Queen, have also won 25 of their 26 region contests over that same stretch, with four region titles out of those five seasons.
The Warriors are not doing that bad. They are 3-2 through the first half of their 2025 regular season, and are coming off their best game of the year so far, a 41-7 win against the aforementioned Walton.
However, their two losses were a 21-0 shutout defeat against McEachern, and a 35-27 loss against an unranked Class 4A Cass program.
By comparison, last season, North Cobb won their first 11 games before suffering their one and only loss of the season to Douglas County in a second round playoff game.
Walton is 2-3 so far through the first half of the of their season, with two of their three losses coming by 33 points and 34 points. The Raiders dropped their season opener to McEachern by a 50-17 final, and last week they lost 41-7 at North Cobb.
Elsewhere around the state, that same trend is also occurring with smaller programs who have enjoyed winning right from the start, and continuing through the regular season, and into the playoffs.
Irwin County
Perhaps no team has fallen harder than the Irwin County Indians.
Irwin County has practically ruled Georgia high school football’s Class A for the past decade. Specifically, for the past 12 years.
Beginning with their 10-win season in 2013, Irwin County has averaged just over 10 wins per season. It’s actually closer to 11 wins per year, at 10.8 wins per season from 2013 to 2024.
Over that stretch, Irwin County’s success was stunning:
In the 11-year period from 2013 to 2024, The Indians advanced to the state finals seven times over an eight-year period.
That includes 5 straight state title game appearances, from 2017 to 2021.
They won back to back Georgia high school football Class A State Championship in 2019 and 2020, including a perfect 13-0 season in 2019.
Irwin County also won 8 region titles over the 12 year period.
Last season, Irwin County finished 12-2 overall, and 4-1 in region 2-A Division II, advancing to the Class A semi-finals.
This season seems to be light years away from the Indians past success.
They are winless through their first three games to start the 2025 season as they head into their fourth game of the year against a winless Dooly County Bobcats team.
Regardless of how their matchup with Dooly County turns out, this has without a doubt been the toughest start for The Indians since their 2011 season, when they started 0-3, and finished with a 3-6 record.
The team’s success came under former head coach Casey Soliday and the late Buddy Nobles. Nobles served as the Indians head coach from 2014 to 2019, before Soliday was named head coach in 2020 following Nobles untimely death from cancer.
Soliday left the Ocilla program following last season. Former Central Gwinnett head coach Larry Harold was named as the new head coach at Irwin County, but he inherited an Indians program hit hard by graduation.
Bowdon Red Devils
Bowdon is 3-2 at the halfway point of their season so far.
That’s not necessarily a bad start to the year for most teams.
But, this is Bowdon, who have set the bar pretty high under head coach Rich Fendley. They have won three straight state titles, and are looking to make it four in a row, which would put the Red Devils in pretty rare company.
Coach Fendley’s team has won 40 games with just 5 losses in those three championship seasons, starting with their first state title in 2022, when they finished 14-1. The past two seasons Bowdon has finished 13-2 in both 2023 and 2024.
They have won every region game over the past five seasons, from 2020 to 2024. Their last region loss occurred on October 25th in 2019, against Darlington.
Bowdon opened the season with a stunning 26-0 loss against Fellowship Christian. Then, the Red Devils were able to win three straight before falling last week 29-28 to Heard County.
It is worth pointing out that this isn’t necessarily unchartered waters for Bowdon; they have started each of the past two seasons with a season-opening loss. Last year, it was a one-point defeat against the same Paladins program that they fell to this year in week one, then in 2023, the Red Devils actually lost their first two games of the season: a 21-20 loss to Manchester, then a 34-14 loss to Central Carrollton in week two.
Bowdon responded by winning their next 13 games on the way to their to the first of their three straight state championships in the Georgia high school football Class A Division-2.
So, I’m sure there’s no panic in the Bowdon camp, or in any of the other teams mentioned here.
After all, there’s still a lot of football to be played in the 2025 Georgia high school football Season, including the all-important region schedule, which is where these and every team in the state can correct whatever has taken place up to this point in non-region play.
And every one of these teams and their head coach knows what it takes to win. They’ve been here before.
They are all truly Blue Blood high school football programs.
