Two of south Georgia’s best football teams will be in Gwinnett County for blockbuster games tonight as the football playoffs resume with 64 second-round games in eight classifications. In Class 6A, the highest, No. 6 Lowndes is playing at No. 8 North Gwinnett while No. 9 Colquitt County plays at No. 1 Grayson. No. 8 Lee County, another south Georgia power, will be at No. 1 Hughes in Fairburn for a Class 5A game.

Washington-Wilkes, Jenkins County and Charlton County were the only No. 3 seeds to survive the first round of the playoffs in Class A Division II. Of those, Washington-Wilkes will have the toughest task this week when it travels to three-time defending champion Bowdon, projected as a 34-point favorite by the computer Maxwell Ratings. Jenkins County will visit Schley County this week, and Charlton County will play at Screven County.

No. 1 seed Carver-Atlanta, No. 3 Carver-Columbus and No. 4 Morgan County are heavy favorites this week, but the computer Maxwell Ratings are expecting some particularly close second-round matchups in Class 2A. Hapeville Charter is a one-point favorite at Appling County, Burke County is favored by one point over Columbia, and the Thomson-Callaway game is projected as a tossup.

Defending Class 4A champion North Oconee will continue its quest to win back-to-back titles when it meets M.L King in a second-round game Friday night. M.L. King is making its first appearance in the second round since 2012. Marist, the runner-up in 2024, will face Blessed Trinity in a battle of metro Atlanta private schools. The winners of those two games will meet in the quarterfinals next week.

Unranked Walton, Berrien and Washington-Wilkes beat heavily favored top-10 opponents Friday night, and Centennial won as a 36-point underdog in the first-round’s biggest upset. Walton’s 28-24 victory over undefeated McEachern resonated loudest around the state, as McEachern, ranked No. 4 in Class 6A, had won nine of its 10 games by 21 points or more, and Walton had lost to the Indians 50-17 in the opening game.

The Georgia high school football playoffs kicked off Thursday with the first two of 119 first-round games to be played from the Chattanooga suburb of Fort Oglethorpe to the Atlantic harbor town of Brunswick. The first round often simply culls the herd – the computer Maxwell Ratings correctly forecast 104 of 119 games last year – but it takes only a few upsets and history-makers to make it special.

Bowdon’s quest for a fourth consecutive state championship kicks into high gear Friday night when the Red Devils open the Class A Division II playoffs with a home game against Wilcox County. Bowdon has won its first-round game each of the past six seasons and is 16-9 all-time in the round of 32. Brooks County, last year’s runner-up is making its 18th consecutive playoff appearance and will host Taylor County in the first round.