The longest winning streak in state history and the longest active streak in the country came to end Thursday night when Valwood defeated John Milledge Academy 42-21 in the GIAA Class 3A championship game at Mercer’s Five Star Stadium in Macon. John Milledge (12-1) had won 62 consecutive games and four straight state championships.

GHSA executive director Robin Hines announced Wednesday that he will retire Aug. 1. Hines shared the news at the end of an executive committee meeting in which the GHSA ratified reclassification for 2024-26 and adopted a playoff format and rankings formula for classes 3A to A Division I. Also approved at the Thomaston meeting were four schools’ appeals to move down in classification for the 2024-26 academic years.

The two highest-ranked teams in Class 3A - No. 1 Calvary Day and No. 2 Cedar Grove - will battle for a spot in the state final when they meet Friday night at Buck Godfrey Stadium in Decatur. The winner will face Savannah Christian or Carver of Columbus for the championship at 1 p.m. on Dec. 13 at Mercedes-Benz Stadium. In the Class 2A semifinals, Fitzgerald will travel to Pierce County and Cook will play at Rockmart.

The Class 5A playoffs have played out according to form as the top four ranked teams - Coffee, Creekside, Jefferson and Cartersville - survived the first three rounds to reach the semifinals. In Class 4A, Stockbridge will try to take down two-time defending champion Benedictine this week, and Perry will face Starr’s Mill for a shot at the state final.

Four teams ranked in the national top 25 of both USA Today and MaxPreps failed to get out of Georgia’s quarterfinals last week. Upended were Mill Creek, Buford, Colquitt County and Carrollton. Their conquerors were Camden County, Grayson, Milton and Walton. Bryan County and Telfair County from Class A also made headlines, advancing to the semifinals for the first time.

Call it the elite eight, but Georgia high school football’s playoff quarterfinals are truly the round of champions. Sharpened by two playoff victories, region winners can meet for the first time Friday night. Fifteen of the 32 quarterfinals are champion-on-champion. Twenty-two match top-10 teams. All 32 feature at least one ranked team.

Benedictine and North Oconee, the top two teams in the Class 4A rankings since the beginning of the season, will face off Friday night as the GHSA playoffs hit the quarterfinal round. Class 5A will move on without defending champion Ware County, which lost to Warner Robins on a last-second field goal in the second round.

Rome, Warner Robins and Toombs County eliminated defending state champions in the second round of the playoffs last week while Lumpkin County and Bryan County reached the quarterfinals for the first time in their histories. Douglas County and Cass also broke long quarterfinal droughts while Jenkins, despite its 3-7 regular season, kept its unlikely run going with another one-point victory as a No. 4 seed.

Defending champions will be on hot seats tonight when the football playoffs resume with 64 second-round games. Reigning Class 6A champion Hughes plays at No. 6 Rome. Both are 10-1. Each has an outstanding senior quarterback. Hughes’ Air Noland surpassed 10,000 passing yards for his career last week. Rome’s Reece Fountain has thrown for more than 8,500 yards.

Three games between ranked teams headline the second week of the postseason in classes 7A and 6A. No. 8 Westlake travels to No. 3 in Class 7A, while the Class 6A games include No. 9 Houston County at No. 10 Woodward Academy and No. 4 Hughes at No. 6 Rome. Collins Hill and Camden County will try to keep the momentum going after upsets last week.

The past two champions of Class 5A will face off in the second round of the playoffs when Ware County travels to Warner Robins. The teams have played each other each of the past four seasons, with each team winning twice. Two-time defending state champion Benedictine will host LaGrange in a Class 4A game.

Football teams placed higher on the playoff bracket will play at home when same-seeded opponents meet in the quarterfinals next week, the Georgia High School Association determined Monday with a universal coin toss.

Unranked Collins Hill, Camden County, Cass, Dalton and Monroe Area defeated top-10 teams, reigning champion Sandy Creek lost, and Bryan County and Lumpkin County won their first playoff games in history in the first round of the GHSA playoffs. Cass, Jenkins, Gilmer and Lovejoy beat No. 1 seeds, and Savannah Christian won in four overtimes, the last one with controversy.

The Georgia High School Association placed its 457 member schools into regions for the 2024-26 academic years Thursday, pushing reclassification one big step closer to completion. The GHSA approved the appeals of six schools to move out of Class 6A, which will be the highest classification, and into Class 5A. Winning those appeals were Arabia Mountain, Houston County, Kennesaw Mountain, New Manchester, Newnan and Shiloh.

Prince Avenue Christian’s Aaron Philo retook the lead in GHSA passing yards with a 388-yard game last week against Oglethorpe County. Philo has thrown for 2,568 yards in eight games. Wayne County’s Matthew Fuller and Loganville’s Ahmed Souare continue to lead the GHSA in rushing and receiving, respectively. Each has only one regular-season game remaining.

Parkview visits Colquitt County for a Class 7A game Friday night in what is perhaps the marquee matchup of the first round, a north-south Georgia battle between an undefeated blue blood and a Gwinnett County team that played for a region title last week. The question is whether Parkview has fuel in the tank after losing to Grayson 41-14.

Arabia Mountain's Daniel Turpin, Bainbridge's Cam Sanders, Stephenson's Devin Ingram and Trion's Toby Maddux produced big numbers in their teams' championship-clinching victories in the final weekend of the regular season, and Marcus Calwise helped Newton break a two-game losing streak and grab the No. 2 seed in Region 4-7A.

Four defending champions and three teams that have never won state titles will enter the playoffs with No. 1 rankings. The defending champions are Mill Creek in Class 7A, Benedictine in 4A, Thomson in 2A and Prince Avenue Christian in A Division I. Coffee in 5A, Calvary Day in 3A and Schley County in A Division II are No. 1. They have never won state titles. Gainesville, in 6A, is the final No. 1 team.

The playoffs kick off this week as 255 GHSA teams, 36 GIAA teams and six GAPPS teams begin the road to the championships. Champions will be crowned by the GAPPS on Nov. 24, by the GIAA on Nov. 30 and Dec. 1 at Mercer's Five Star Stadium, and by the GHSA Dec. 11-13 at Mercedes-Benz Stadium.