North Cobb Christian’s Cooper Bazarsky and Newnan’s Brodie Campbell and John Matthews are the GHSA’s leading rusher, passer and receiver after three weeks of the regular season. All three play for 3-0 teams. Bazarsky has rushed for at least 150 yards in each of his games for a total of 662. Newnan's quarterback-wide receiver pair got most of their yards in a single game, a 60-56 victory over East Coweta on Aug. 22, when Campbell passed for 516 yards and Matthews had 257 receiving yards.

Region play heats up in Week 4 as Stockbridge and Eagle's Landing of 2-4A, Whitewater and Troup of 2-3A and Ringgold and Rockmart of 7-2A meet to determine the early pecking order in their playoff races. Elsewhere, south Georgia rivals Thomas County Central and Thomasville will face off for the 58th time.

More than 135 former Georgia high school players are on active rosters ahead of Thursday night’s NFL opener between the Cowboys and Eagles, according to GHSF Daily research. There are dozens more on injured reserve or practice squads. Hillgrove and North Gwinnett have the most active NFL players with six each. Three of North Gwinnett’s six are rookies Barrett Carter, Jordan Hancock and Jared Ivey. Hillgrove’s six include former first-round draft picks Myles Murphy and Bradley Chubb.

Wide receivers Josh Stanley of Bleckley County, Ty Kemp of North Hall and Kyle Cummings of Northwest Whitfield combined for more than 400 receiving yards and accounted for 11 touchdowns in their teams' victories in Week 3 of the high school football season. Parkview's Zandon Mullins rushed for 326 yards, and Mill Creek's Jayde Beasley ran for 269.

The football rankings remained largely the same after almost no upsets involving top-10 teams in the third weekend of the season. Thirteen top-10 teams were beaten, but only one lost to a lower-ranked, instate opponent from the same class. That was former No. 5 Colquitt County in Class 6A. North Gwinnett, playing at home, beat the Packers 21-7 and moved up one spot to No. 7 while Colquitt fell to No. 10.

It’s early to be talking playoffs with only 12 of 1,281 region games complete, but Loren Maxwell of the Maxwell Ratings churns out playoff projections each week on AJC Varsity, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s new high school sports product. The GHSA changes the region playoff pairings each year, so each new season brings a different landscape to the brackets.

Two of Georgia's defending state champions will be tested by top out-of-state competition Friday night when Thompson of Alabama visits Grayson and McCallie of Tennessee hosts Hebron Christian in top Week 3 action. Cherokee Bluff and North Hall will battle for supremacy in Hall County, and Colquitt County travels to North Gwinnett to renew a North-South rivalry.

New football coaches often ask for patience. The request is more than fair. New GHSA coaches are 53-96 this season. Those same teams were 65-94 one year ago. So yes, it takes time. But these five have made their fan bases happy so far: Rance Gillespie (Rabun County), Nelson Stewart (Westminster), Corey Richardson (Norcross), Kevin Saunders (Apalachee) and Brett Vavra (Etowah).

Offensive players were in the spotlight in Week 2 of the high school season. Newnan quarterback Brodie Campbell passed for 516 yards in his team's victory over rival East Coweta, and running backs Gene Watson of Berrien, Devon Caldwell of Hebron Christian, Henry Pullen of McEachern and Andrew Davis all went over the 200-yard mark in victories.

Fresh off victories over two of Cobb County’s top programs, McEachern is in the rankings for the first time since 2020, checking in at No. 6 in Class 6A. The Indians defeated then-No. 6 North Cobb 21-0 on Friday after beating Walton 50-17 the previous week. North Cobb and Walton are Cobb’s two winningest teams since 2020. The No. 6 ranking is McEachern’s highest since the Indians reached the 2019 quarterfinals ranked No. 2.