Lowndes beat Valdosta in a matchup of unbeaten teams, but that victory has not put it ahead of its rival in the projected playoff order. The GHSA Post Season Rankings standings and Maxwell Ratings projections place Lowndes third and Valdosta first in Class 7A, leaving the winning team two spots behind the opponent it defeated.
Appling County faces a similar outcome after also winning a game between teams that entered with 8-0 records. Maxwell projects both Appling County and Lowndes to receive lower seeds than the teams they beat. Across the classifications, Maxwell identifies 25 teams in that position without conflicting indirect results, such as three teams each going 1-1 against the other two.
The pattern extends to region champions. In Class 5A, Jefferson defeated North Oconee last week and won their region, yet Maxwell projects Jefferson as the seventh seed and North Oconee as the third. Jefferson is ninth in the current standings, with the projection moving it up two places but still leaving it behind North Oconee.
In Class 4A, Dougherty also won its region and defeated Cairo in October. Cairo nevertheless holds fifth place in the standings and is projected to remain there. Dougherty is sixth in both the current order and the projected finish, putting the region winner immediately below a team it beat.
The Class 7A projections show little movement among the leading teams. Valdosta, Newton, Lowndes, Carrollton, Brookwood and North Gwinnett are projected to retain the first six positions in that order. Farther down, North Cobb is projected to climb from 14th to seventh, while Colquitt County is projected to fall from seventh to 12th.
Other classifications show changes at the top of the projected order. Blessed Trinity is projected to move ahead of Cartersville in Class 5A, reversing their current first and second positions. Peach County is similarly projected to overtake Troup in Class 4A, while Heard County is projected to pass Thomasville in Class 2A.
In Class A, Maxwell projects Lincoln County to finish first and Taylor County second, also reversing their current standings. The private school division projections put Holy Innocents’ ahead of Prince Avenue Christian, which currently occupies the top position. For Lowndes, Jefferson and Dougherty, however, the projected finishes preserve a gap between their results against particular opponents and their places in the playoff seeding order.
