Buford and Hughes, the No. 1-ranked teams in Georgia’s two highest classifications, came away the biggest wins of the opening Friday night of Georgia’s high school football season.
Two defending champions, Thomson and Bowdon, took losses in their openers, beaten by Burke County and Manchester, respectively. And a few claps are due for little Bryan County, a coastal Georgia school that beat a top-10 opponent for the first time in its history.
First, the games with a national spotlight. Buford’s victory was decisive. Hughes’ victory was riveting.
Buford, of Class 7A, defeated St. Frances Academy of Maryland 18-0 at home in a game between teams ranked in the top 10 nationally. St. Frances is the consensus No. 4 team in the country while Buford is No. 7, according to MaxPreps.
Dylan Raiola, a five-star QB recruit committed to Georgia, threw touchdown passes to Tyshun White and K.J. Bolden in the first half, as Buford took a 15-0 lead.
Hughes, Georgia’s defending 6A champion, beat Carrollton 39-34 in a road game that came down to a tackle at Hughes’ 1-yard line.
It was the first game in the modern recruiting era between Georgia teams with consensus five-star quarterbacks. Hughes’ Air Noland, a senior committed to Ohio State, was 12-of-21 passing for 159 yards and two touchdowns, one for 25 yards to Jovanni McGee for the winning touchdown with 1:11 left.
Carrollton sophomore Ju Ju Lewis, who was 20-of-30 for 186 yards, led his team on a final drive, but Hughes prevailed when Tory Arnold and others tackled Jordan White at the 1 at the end of a 2-yard pass play.
While 2022 champions Hughes, Ware County, Fitzgerald and Prince Avenue Christian won, two other reigning champs went down, though neither was shocking.
Burke County, a 4A school, beat Thomson, a 2A school, 14-12. Burke also beat Thomson last year, 24-21, and Thomson won its final 14 games to win a championship. Thomson began this season No. 3. Burke County was working under first-year coach Franklin Stephens, who was McEachern’s coach last season.
Bowdon, ranked No. 1 in Class A Division II, lost to No. 5 Manchester 21-20. Bowdon scored with 2:15 left but was stopped on a two-point try. Manchester lost to Bowdon twice last season by scores of 29-14 and 42-21. It was Manchester’s first victory over a No. 1-ranked team since beating Miller County in 1994.
Bryan County had a good storyline behind its 28-16 victory over No. 8 Lincoln County of Class A Division II. It was Bryan County’s first win in its 47-year varsity history over a top-10 team. Bryan County’s coach, Cherard Freeman, is a former Lincoln County star running back. He got the Bryan County job in 2019, inheriting a winless team. The Redskins went 6-5 in 2022.
Bryan County is a Division I Class A school, one up from Lincoln County, so that left Manchester’s win over Bowdon as the only pure upset of the night. Sixteen ranked teams lost, but the rest were beaten by lower-ranked teams or bigger schools.
Those games included:
*No. 2 Gainesville over No. 9 Marist 34-26 in Class 6A.
*No. 5 Lee County of 6A over No. 3 Warner Robins of 5A 26-19.
*Unranked Blessed Trinity of 6A over No. 5 Calhoun of 5A 17-7.
*No. 2 North Oconee over No. 7 Oconee County in 3A 29-12.
*No. 1 Ware County of 5A over No. 2 Appling County of 2A 20-17.
*No. 1 Fitzgerald of 2A over No. 3 Irwin County of A D-I 28-0.
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