A look at 10 of the most intriguing storylines of 2025
In eight days, it will be over, the 2025 football season in the books. Things will look differently then, considering that eight championship games and two semifinals are still on the schedule, but here are our picks as the 10 most intriguing stories of 2025 season so far. They’re roughly ordered from fairly gripping to spell-binding.
*Apalachee’s healing: The season began on a feel-good note when Apalachee ended a 29-game losing streak with a 29-9 victory over Chattahoochee. Apalachee is the Barrow County school that was the site of a September 2024 shooting that claimed the lives of two students and two educators, including football defensive coordinator Ricky Aspinwall. Head coach Mike Hancock resigned in March, citing depression and PTSD. The school hired Kevin Saunders later that month. He didn’t necessarily expect the losing streak to end in game one, but it did as a 15-point underdog. “I got handshakes by people I hadn’t met yet,” Saunders said. “Students that aren’t in my class come up to me and say thank you. They were thanking all the players. It was very emotional for a lot of the kids. There were lots of tears shed by players and students and families.” Apalachee also won its first region game since 2021 this season and finished 2-8.
*Grayson’s rise and fall: Grayson entered as Class 6A’s defending champion and No. 1-ranked team with the state’s top-rated player, linebacker Tyler Atkinson. Despite losing star quarterback Travis Burgess for the season in the second game to an ACL injury, Grayson kept winning and started collecting No. 1 national rankings by midseason and held three of them entering the quarterfinals. By most accounts, it was an excellent season, a 12-1 finish. It just didn’t end well. Grayson had beaten Carrollton 38-24 for the 2024 title, dominating a Trojans squad featuring star quarterback Julian Lewis. In the 2025 quarterfinals, Carrollton was in vengeful form on its home field and won 34-14. Twelve Rams, including linebackers Atkinson (Texas) and Anthony Davis (Ole Miss), signed with Division I schools.
*Shelton Felton and Valdosta: Valdosta turned to coach Shelton Felton in 2022 when the program was in a rough spot. “They called it the death penalty,” Felton said. A slight exaggeration, it was merely a GHSA-imposed postseason ban for alleged recruiting sins of the coach Rush Propst administration. Some players left the program, and the Wildcats finished 4-6. Initially promoted from Propst’s staff in the interim, Felton got the job permanently that fall, and Valdosta has improved its win total or playoff finish each season since. The 2025 team became Valdosta's first to reach the semifinals since 2020 and the first to do so in the highest class – which Valdosta mostly ruled from 1960 to 1998 – since 2003.
*Lee Chomskis and Lincoln County: The Red Devils are in the finals for the first time since 2006. Only those in their 30s or older might appreciate the significance. Lincoln County was the Class A jewel of Georgia for decades under coach Larry Campbell, who won 11 state titles during his 1972-2013 tenure. Since then, Lincoln County has struggled to get the motor cranked again. In 2020, the Red Devils hired Lee Chomskis, an Augusta native with Lincolnton ties. He was the offensive coordinator on the 2006 team. His mother was a former Lincoln County homecoming queen, and his uncle, GACA Hall of Fame coach Dan Pitts of Mary Persons, grew up there. Larry Campbell was Chomskis’ Little League baseball coach. Chomskis’ 2025 team is 14-0 while outscoring its opponents 575-95. Next is Bowdon, Georgia's first Class A public-school program to win three consecutive titles since Lincoln County (1985-87).
*Kaiden Prothro and Bowdon: Bowdon wide receiver Kaiden Prothro set the state record for career touchdown receptions this season. Prothro has 65, six more than previous record-holder Jaden Gibson of Rabun County. Prothro has 26 TD receptions this season, three behind Gibson’s single-season record, despite missing two games injured. Prothro also plays cornerback and special teams. He scored four touchdowns in the semifinals against Clinch County, two on receptions, two on returns (interception, blocked punt).
*Creekside 803: The first clue that this might be a historic season for Creekside came Aug. 30, when the Seminoles beat DeSoto of Texas 70-28. DeSoto beat Creekside 70-0 the season before and held a top-25 national rankings at the time. Creekside is now 14-0 and the all-time leading scorer in GHSA history with 803 points. That’s 57.4 points per game. Creekside scored more points in a 91-0 victory over Drew than 27 GHSA teams did all season. For good measure, Creekside’s defense has shut out seven opponents and held five others to seven points or fewer. Creekside will play Benedictine, a four-time champion in the past 12 seasons, in the Class 4A final Monday.
*Ty Cummings and West Laurens: Ty Cummings was GHSF Daily’s state player of the week in September, when he rushed for 224 yards and two touchdowns in a key region victory over Harlem. The next Friday night, GHSF Daily got a text from West Laurens coach Kip Burdette. “Anybody ever won POW two weeks in a row?” Not until then. Cummings rushed for 615 yards and eight touchdowns on 19 carries against Baldwin to earn the second award. Cummings went on to lead Georgia in rushing with 2,610 yards in West Laurens’ most successful season in history – 13-1 and the first semifinal appearance in school history, which dates to 1972. Cummings injured an ankle in the quarterfinals, when he rushed for 249 yards, and was limited to four carries in a 17-13 loss to Jefferson in the Class 3A semifinals. A 5-foot-7, 180-pound senior with elite speed, Cummings signed with Georgia Southern last week.
*Buford and Carrollton: It’s not surprising these blue-blood programs are in the Class 6A final. Carrollton was the 2024 runner-up and defeated Buford in the 2024 semifinals. They have 21 state titles between them. Both are 14-0. Eight Buford players and four Carrollton players have signed with or committed to Power 4 Conference teams. What neither anticipated was the chance to win their first national titles. Last week, Carrollton rose to No. 1 in MaxPreps and Buford took the No. 1 spot in USA Today. It seems logical that the winner of Tuesday’s championship game in Mercedes-Benz Stadium will retain its No. 1 position. The most recent Georgia national champion was Colquitt County in 2015, selected by High School Football America. The most recent USA Today national champion was LaGrange in 1991.
*New playoff format: The GHSA made the most profound change to its playoff format in history in October. Beginning in 2026-27, all sports using a tournament bracket will choose and seed playoff teams using the GHSA’s points rating system called the Post Season Rankings. Region finish no longer will matter except to ensure that region champions are seeded in the top 16 of a 32-team bracket. A third-place region finisher might be seeded ahead of the champion from its own region, or a fifth-place finisher might make the playoffs ahead of a third-place finisher. The PSR currently helps seed and pick playoff teams in classes 3A, 2A, A Division I and 3A-A private, but with exceptions granted for region finish. In 2026-27, the PSR will govern all classes with almost no region guardrails. The PSR is a formula that relies heavily on a team’s and its opponents’ winning percentage. It is popular for its simplicity but criticized for its accuracy. Region finish has guided GHSA playoffs since the association first staged football playoffs for all classes in 1948.
*Gainesville and the GHSA: There have been more controversial playoff games. Historians might point out the Calhoun-Peach County and Sandy Creek-Cedar Grove finals that spurred to the GHSA to adopt instant replay, or the time in 1987 that Evans’ quarterback was playing with a radio receiver in his helmet, prompting the GHSA to make Evans forfeit its quarterfinal victory over Effingham County. And in 1975, Lakeside of Atlanta kicked a last-play field goal to beat Douglass 15-14 in the semifinals, and the GHSA took more than a week to decide that officials made a mistake not letting the clock run off and awarded Douglass the victory, delaying the championship game a week. Not sure any of those controversies matched in twists and turns the Gainesville saga. To recap, Gainesville beat Brunswick 42-0 in a second-round game stopped late in the third quarter because of an altercation involving some 80 players. The GHSA suspended 38 Gainesville players and fined the school $5,000. Gainesville won a GHSA appeal to have four reinstated. A Superior Court issued a restraining order, preventing the GHSA from enforcing the suspensions. The GHSA postponed the Gainesville-Hughes quarterfinal game indefinitely. The GHSA chose not to enforce the suspensions, citing inconsistency in how it handled a similar situation in August, and scheduled the game for last Friday. Gainesville beat Hughes, an 11-point favorite, 40-32. Gainesville will play at Rome on Thursday in a delayed semifinal. Thomas County Central and Roswell, the Class 5A semifinalist bystanders, also will play that day, not to their liking or preference. The winners will play Wednesday. That will be the final game of the GHSA season.