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.