Class 6A football is about to get serious this week in south Georgia as region play begins in six-team Region 1.
Friday night’s games are No. 5 Camden County (5-0) at No. 9 Valdosta (5-0), Lowndes (5-0) at Colquitt County (3-2) and Tift County (2-3) at Richmond Hill (5-0).
Camden County is coming off a surprise run to the semifinals last season under coach Jeff Herron, who retired with more than 300 victories and ended on a high note by putting Camden back in the mix as a factor in the highest classification.
Now enter coach Travis Roland, hired from Mainland, Fla., where he just won a state title. Roland had made Camden County more of a passing team. Herron was famous for the run-oriented wing-T.
Camden’s Parks Riendeau is 67-of-94 passing for 1,030 yards and 13 touchdowns. Riendeau passed for only 1,180 yards last season in 14 games as a sophomore. AJC Super 11 player Elyss Williams, a tight end, has 33 receptions for 457 yards.
Valdosta is thriving under coach Shelton Felton, who also replaced a 300-game winner. Felton succeeded Rush Propst in 2021 after a recruiting scandal set the program back. After one losing season, Valdosta is 21-7 since.
Todd Robinson is Valdosta’s top player. He’s a quarterback committed to Georgia, where he likely will move to defensive back. He’s thrown for 3,066 yards and rushed for 1,875 in his Valdosta career.
The Colquitt-Lowndes games matches two rebuilding teams but with different stories.
Colquitt was 25-2 in coach Sean Calhoun’s first two seasons. The Packers are 3-2 now after major graduation losses that included Super 11 players Ny Carr (now at Miami) and Landen Thomas (Florida State).
Colquitt has lost to No. 3 North Gwinnett of 6A and No. 2 Lee County of 5A, so there are no bad losses, and Colquitt has failed to win at least one playoff game 14 of the past 15 seasons. Colquitt is building around a freshman quarterback, Cohen Lawson.
Lowndes is coming off its first back-to-back losing seasons since the 1990s. The 5-0 start is more typical of the Vikings, who won 10 games or more each season from 2016 to 2021. Lowndes’ coach is Adam Carter, in his second year. He led Grayson to a Class 7A championship in 2020.
Richmond Hill is heavily favored over Tift County in the third game and perhaps heavily underrated statewide. Unranked at 5-0, the Wildcats are coming off a 35-28 victory over Buchholz, a Florida power that was ranked in the top 200 of High School Football America’s poll last week. Richmond Hill rushed for 462 yards.
Tift County, coming off a 2-8 season, is 2-3 under first-year coach Jeff Littleton, who won a 2018 state title at Bainbridge.
