Georgia football coach Kirby Smart and former NFL MVP and Heisman Trophy winner Cam Newton will headline this year’s inductees into the Georgia High School Football Hall of Fame. Also part of the 2025 class will be NBA legend Walt Frazier of Atlanta’s old Howard High, former Falcons and Georgia Tech star Keith Brooking of East Coweta and 2025 Pro Football Hall of Fame honoree Sterling Sharpe of Glennville.

Fitzgerald, a South Georgia football program that has made five consecutive state semifinal appearances, hired Stephens County’s Wes Tankersley as head coach last week. Tankersley, who led Stephens County to two region titles in his seven seasons, was approved by the Ben Hill Schools board. “We’re excited to be part of that community and continue the success they’ve had,” Tankersley told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

Tri-Cities has hired Michael Woolridge as its head football coach. Woolridge had been Pebblebrook’s head coach the past two seasons. His 2024 team finished 6-5, the Falcons’ best record since 2021. Woolridge was South Atlanta’s head coach in 2021 and 2022. He had a 22-3 record there and led the Hornets to a 22-3 record and two state quarterfinals finishes.

Appling County has hired Tucker Pruitt – whose 60 victories this decade are tied for most among South Georgia football coaches – to begin a new chapter for a successful program hit with 10 forfeits to its 2024 Class 2A semifinals season. Pruitt led Fitzgerald to its fifth consecutive semifinals appearance last season.

NBA legend Walt Frazier, Georgia football coach Kirby Smart and former Heisman Trophy winner and NFL MVP Cam Newton were among the 30 players added to the ballot for the Georgia High School Football Hall of Fame last week. The 30 additions refreshed the ballot to 100 players after 30 were inducted last year.

The Georgia High School Association’s reclassification committee last week heard new proposals, got more answers about existing ones and continued to warm to the idea of seeding playoff teams in every class with power rankings. Starting this academic year, power ratings — a math model that ranks teams based on game scores — are helping select and seed playoff teams in classes 3A, 2A and A Division I.

The GHSA-endorsed competitive balance reclassification model needs to make up lost ground Monday when the GHSA’s reclass committee resumes its monthly meetings in Thomaston. The meeting agenda, which the GHSA posted Wednesday, includes discussion of competitive balance and a separate reclass model introduced last month.

Rance Gillespie, a 21-year head coach in Georgia, is Rabun County’s new football coach. The northeast Georgia mountain school made the announcement last week. Gillespie, a Rabun County alumnus, is a 21-year Georgia head coach with stops at five schools, most notably Peach County, where he won two state titles.

The Georgia High School Association legalized name, image, likeness (NIL) deals for high school athletes in October 2024, but those contracts remain scarce and rarely lead to big money, the GHSA’s Robin Hines said last week. Hines was the GHSA’s executive director when NIL deals were approved. He retired last summer but stayed on as the GHSA’s liaison to the Georgia General Assembly.

Citing PTSD, anxiety, grief and depression, Mike Hancock has resigned as football coach at Apalachee, the Barrow County school that was the site of a Sept. 4 shooting that left two students and two faculty members dead. One of those killed in the shooting, Richard Aspinwall, was Hancock’s defensive coordinator.