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.