There are 28 undefeated teams in Georgia heading into the final three weekends of the regular season. Class AAA has the most with 10, but AAAAA can boast four – Ware County, Kell, Allatoona and Lanier.
Here’s a look at those four teams and the obstacles they face in trying to reach the 10-0 mark for the regular season.
*Ware County: The top-ranked Gators are 7-0 overall and in first place in Region 3 with a 5-0 mark. Ware already beat the top challenger in the region when it held off second-ranked Coffee 24-21 in the teams' region opener. The Gators' toughest remaining test figures to be in the regular-season finale at Brunswick (4-3) on Nov. 7. They will be heavily favored in their next two games against Statesboro and South Effingham, who have a combined record of 5-9. Ware County has never gone 10-0 in the regular season.
*Kell: The No. 3-ranked Longhorns (7-0, 4-0 in 7-AAAAA Div. B) have the most difficult remaining schedule of the four unbeaten teams. They should win handily against North Atlanta this week (the Maxwell Ratings project them as 39-point favorites), but the road gets much tougher from there. Kell closes the subregion portion of the schedule against Sprayberry, which has won six straight overall and is 5-0 in the subregion. If Kell beats the Yellow Jackets, it will play in the region championship game against Dalton, which is likely to be 8-1 going into that game. Kell went 10-0 in 2010 and 2013.
*Allatoona: The fourth-ranked Buccaneers are 8-0 overall (7-0 in 5-AAAAA) and need one victory in their final two games to win the region championship. That victory is likely to come this week against Paulding County, which is a 28-point underdog, according to Maxwell. The Buccaneers are off next weekend before closing the regular season against Chapel Hill, which is 0-7. Allatoona, playing its sixth full varsity season, won its only previous region title in 2011, when it went 10-0 for the only time in school history.
*Lanier: Sixth-ranked Lanier moved up from Class AAAA and into a competitive region this year, so its success has been a bit of a surprise, despite going 9-3 last season. The Longhorns cleared the biggest obstacle to a 10-0 season when they beat defending 8-AAAAA champ Gainesville two weekends ago, and they have beaten the other 2013 playoff teams – Clarke Central, Heritage-Conyers and Flowery Branch – by at least two touchdowns each. Lanier faces playoff contenders Salem (5-2) and Winder-Barrow (4-3) the next two weekends before closing the regular season against winless Apalachee. Lanier is playing its third full season.
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