Region championships on the line, playoff seeding in jeopardy, one final game to prepare for playoff football.In the final, decisive games of the regular season, high stakes yielded high rewards.
Kiel Pollard is unquestionably a threat out wide as a receiver, but he continues to prove his prowess as a rusher. With his big frame, physical style of play, and the elusiveness to match, he provided the goal line scoring that the Packers needed to take home the region title against formerly undefeated Camden.
Shannon Young has wreaked havoc in 2-A, and now he is ready to lead Clinch into playoff competition. Averaging over 19 yards per carry in his last game against Telfair, Young is primed with big play potential and is always a threat to score.
Back in September, when it came time to select a cover athlete for November, we already knew that J.D. King was going to prove himself worthy of the status, and he has. His consistent play came up just shy of a region title title for Fitzgerald, falling behind Brooks County, but 140 yards and 3 TDs are more than enough to put him on our top 5 once again.
Seth Shuman makes it increasingly difficult to leave him out of our weekly top 5’s. While last Friday’s completion percentage wasn’t one of his finest on the year, the yardage, point-producing, and command over the game have yet to falter. His execution of the ordinary has the power to calm the crowd, but it’s his electric playmaking ability that brings them to their feet. His confidence in Coach Rance Gillespie’s system allows him to operate comfortably, freeing him to lead and invigorate his teammates.
Anchoring our list is the power duo from Lowndes: Austin Dixon and Michael Barrett. With the consistent play of Dixon providing the framework, the Lowndes offense seems to have finally found some flair in Michael Barrett. Coming off of a remarkable Winnersville performance, Barrett cashed in on his opportunities to produce, rattling off 3 TDs. Coupled with Dixon’s dual-threat attack, the Viking offense might have found some diversity to their approach, just in time to travel to Atlanta.
Leading into the playoffs, we were fortunate enough to see no changes to our top 5. Colquitt, Bainbridge, Clinch, and Coffee all clenched their respective region titles, but Fitzgerald is the notable exception. Fitzgerald fell behind Brooks County, therefore you could make a very good argument that it should be Brooks on our list instead of Fitzgerald. If it were a 6 team list, it would certainly host them both, but I am going with a gut feeling in projecting that Fitzgerald makes a deeper playoff run than Brooks. Playoff competition requires a strong, consistent run game, and that advantage goes to Fitzgerald behind J.D. King.
Also, possibly the most impressive victory last Friday was Colquitt over Camden. With everything to lose, the Packers didn’t bat an eye in their biggest challenge of the year. Especially in light of last year’s near disaster against Camden, Colquitt seems poised and well deserving of the #1 seed entering the playoffs.
* Our criteria is NOT creating hypothetical matchups amongst teams in an effort to crown a champion; that is settled on the field within each respective division, from A to AAAAAA. Since high school, unlike college, crowns multiple champions per year, our Top 5 is meant to highlight great teams who are excelling within their schedules, regardless of classification. It would be unreasonable and unfair to eliminate teams in lower classifications from our Top 5 simply because of that fact. We can only hold teams accountable to whether or not they are impressively performing against the teams that they are scheduled to play. In short, our criteria is based upon projecting performances and the likelihood of championships, regardless of classification.
